Get to Know Us: Our Clergy

Rabbi Michael S. Beals, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. has been with Beth Shalom for eight years. He is a 1997 graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Rabbi Beals is also a graduate of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles (MA Hebrew Letters), The American University in Washington DC (MA International Relations), and University of California at Berkeley (BA Political Science). He received the Raoul Wallenberg Fellowship at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Beyond his accomplished education, Rabbi Beals has also worked in a variety of roles from serving as a management analyst developing multi-cultural training programs to working with young and old in programs of music therapy, Shabbat programming, and providing pastoral counseling and support to the sick and elderly and to the families that support them.

During Rabbi Beals tenure our Hebrew School has grown to over 100 students, we've established a nationally recognized Keruv Initiative - to welcome and support interfaith families, and re-established an active and involved Sisterhood and Men's Club. Also during his tenure, we have transformed our 1950s spiritual home to a modern, accessible, spiritual center.

Rabbi Beals is proudly accompanied by his wife, Elissa, a trained house-call veterinarian and his children, Ariella and Shira. They are avid cat and dog lovers.

Cantor Elisa Abrams, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Cantor Elisa Abrams was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Throughout her childhood, she was an active member at Adat Ari El in Valley Village, where she and her twin sister were named, attended religious school and confirmation/seminar, and tutored B’nei Mitzvah students. At the age of eight, she joined Cantor Ira S. Bigeleisen’s youth choir and took a liking to Jewish music and liturgy. Over the course of her Jewish education, her passion for everything Jewish grew and when Cantor Bigeleisen, her teacher and mentor, invited her to sing in a cantorial concert, she realized that she couldn’t imagine pursuing a career other than the cantorate. From that day on, her dream was to study music in college and then attend cantorial school.

Cantor Elisa studied music at the University of California in Santa Barbara from 2003 to 2007, where she became involved in the university’s Hillel community, and also taught religious school at a nearby reform synagogue, Congregation B’nei Brith. Early on in her college career, she traveled to Israel for the first time with Taglit-Birthright and also spent an academic quarter studying abroad in Siena, Italy. At the end of her final year in Santa Barbara, she was accepted into the five-year program at the H.L. Miller Cantorial School at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS). Upon graduating from college in 2007, she moved to Jerusalem for her first year of cantorial school, where she took courses in Nusach, Judaica, and intensive modern Hebrew at the Conservative Yeshivah and Ulpan Beit Ha’Am. In Jerusalem, she not only studied voice privately, but also took part in the collaborative Women’s Project with Hebrew Union College, which gave her the opportunity to study Persian women’s music with a master vocalist in the field. Throughout the year abroad she served as a Shabbat Scholar, leading services and learning sessions for Hillel birthright groups from America.

Upon completion of her first year of cantorial school, Cantor Elisa moved to New York where she continued her studies at the main campus of JTS. Shortly after her return, she added on a second master’s degree in Jewish Education through The William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education. In the summer of 2009, she held the position of Rosh Tefillah at Camp Ramah in New England and spent the following school year serving on JTS’s Gabbai Team at the Women’s League Seminary Synagogue. While living in New York, she taught religious school at Congregation Kol Ami (White Plains), B’nei Jeshurun (Manhattan), and East End Temple (Manhattan). In 2010, Elisa served as student cantor/rabbi for the High Holy Days at the Cedar Crest Retirement community in Pomptom Plains, New Jersey, and as Cantorial Intern at Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles, California. During her final year of school, she served as Cantorial Intern and B’nei Mitzvah tutor at Park Avenue Synagogue and Education Intern at Sutton Place Synagogue in Manhattan.

In May of 2012, Cantor Elisa graduated with a dual masters in Sacred Music and Jewish Education, as well as Certificate of Hazzan. Cantor Elisa is very excited to serve as Cantor and Director of Education at Congregation Beth Shalom in Wilmington, Delaware.