Congregation Emanuel is located in Statesville, nestled in the heart of the North Carolina Piedmont. The Congregation was established in 1883. We are affiliated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, through Temple Israel in Charlotte, NC. We have a small but active congregation that welcomes all visitors with Jewish hospitality and a warm Southern flair.

Congregation Emanuel is a warm synagogue family devoted to lifelong learning, meaningful prayer, and acts of loving kindness. As an egalitarian and inclusive Conservative Jewish congregation, we help each person connect with the beauty of our tradition as it evolves. Inspired by the diversity of our paths, we stand with one another in times of joy and sadness as we build a sacred comunity of caring.

Dahlia Bernstein is a Legacy Heritage Fund Rabbinic Fellow. “Support for the Legacy Heritage Fund Rabbinic Fellows Program has been generously provided by Legacy Heritage Fund Limited.” Please join us in welcoming Dahlia to Statesville and our Congregation!

Hillel, the sage taught: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?”

Every day we balance self care and the care we give others, our children, parents, friends, and community members. Sometimes it feels like there are not enough hours in the day to be both for ourselves and others, but Hillel the sage tells us that each is a must. How do we balance the two? The answer lies in the last saying. It seems tangential but Hillel urges us to act now, and be proactive, telling us that we can be for ourselves and for others all at the same time.

I believe in a tradition that gives us a blueprint for how we can simultaneously be for ourselves and for others. It tells us to do so in communal prayer, Torah study, shared meals, and in acts of repairing the world. It happens when we celebrate each other’s simchas (happy occasions), and when we mourn each other’s losses. My mother always says: “sorrows shared are halved, joys shared are doubled.” We live in community because it gives us the opportunity to nourish our own souls while we nourish the souls of our neighbors. I look forward to a year of listening and support for one another, each of us receiving as we give.

Dahlia Bernstein is in her fifth and final year of rabbinical school at The Jewish Theological Seminary where she is also pursuing a master’s degree in Jewish Education. Dahlia has shared her love of teaching Jewish youth and adults in both informal and formal Jewish settings such as Camp Ramah in Nyack, New York, and in synagogues in Manhattan, Brooklyn, New Jersey, and Rockland County, NY. Hailing from Plainview, New York, Dahlia graduated from the Joint Program between JTS and Columbia University, where she earned two bachelor's degrees: one from Columbia in Anthropology and the second in Talmud and Rabbinics from JTS. Between college and rabbinical school, Dahlia worked for the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York in their Intergroup Relations Department.

During rabbinical school, Dahlia was granted the Schusterman Fellowship where she participated in interdenominational dialogue with her Reform colleagues on communal matters of the American Jewish population. She completed a unit of chaplaincy through Metropolitan Jewish Hospice, 2010-2011. Dahlia will bring her love of singing and Torah study to Rochester Institute of Technology for the third High Holiday season where she will be the rabbinic leader this coming September. She served as the rabbinic intern for Orangetown Jewish Center in Orangeburg, New York. where she will also be completing an education internship. Dahlia currently lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with her husband of 3 years, Aaron Friedman, stand-up comedian and children's entertainer.