About

Rabbi Elle Muhlbaum serves as a rabbi at Congregation Mishkan Or in Beachwood, Ohio.

In 2020, Rabbi Muhlbaum and her family came to Beachwood, OH, where she served as a rabbi at Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple. In 2024, Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple and The Temple-Tifereth Israel merged, creating Congregation Mishkan Or.

Before moving to Cleveland, Rabbi Muhlbaum was the Associate Rabbi of Temple Beth-El of Great Neck, NY. Rabbi Muhlbaum works with community members of all ages. She creates dynamic prayer experiences, accompanies families through the fullness of their life cycles, and provides comforting pastoral care. She loves working intergenerationally, providing outreach to unaffiliated community members and “inreach” to Temple members who find themselves less involved. She loves working with children and adults, bringing Torah to life for her students.

Rabbi Muhlbaum was ordained in 2016 at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) on the New York campus in 2016. Prior to her time on the New York campus, she received her Master of Arts in Hebrew Letters from HUC-JIR’s Cincinnati’s campus in 2014. She holds an Honors Bachelor of Arts degree in Hebrew from The Ohio State University.

While a rabbinical student, Rabbi Muhlbaum served as the rabbinic intern at Temple Sinai of Bergen County in Tenafly, NJ, as well as the student rabbi of United Hebrew Congregation in Terre Haute, IN, and Mount Sinai Congregation in Texarkana, TX. She completed one unit (400 hours) of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at Cincinnati’s Bethesda North hospital, serving the oncology wing. She was also the Jewish Foundation Fellow and rabbinic intern at Cedar Village Retirement Community in Mason, OH. Additionally, she served as the Assistant Limud Director at URJ Eisner Camp, where she proudly returned for several summers as a faculty member.

Rabbi Muhlbaum was co-founder and co-director of the Smashing Idols Fellowship (now called the Founders’ Fellows) at HUC-JIR. Working with the office of Rabbi Aaron Panken, z’’l, she helped create an innovative and dynamic fellowship for college students in the Northeast to strengthen the presence of progressive and Reform Jewish life on college campuses.

Rabbi Muhlbaum is the recipient of the Emanuel Green prize for proficiency in Midrash and Hebrew, the Rabbi Sarah Messinger prize in Leadership, the Be Wise fellowship, and the AIPAC Leffell Israel Fellowship.

Rabbi Elle Muhlbaum is married to Cantor Vladimir Lapin, and together they are delighted to parent their two adorable children and their dog, Gus.