Rabbi Janet Offel is a respected rabbi both locally and nationally. In addition to having served in the congregational rabbinate at Temple Isaiah in West Los Angeles and at Temple Aliyah in Woodland Hills, she is a popular guest rabbi/scholar throughout Southern California. She has also served as a curriculum consultant to Synagogue 2000, a national transdenominational institute dedicated to fosterin g transformational change in synagogue life, a Lecturer in the Religious Studies Department at California State University, Northridge, and Jewish Hospice Chaplain with Kaiser Permanente.

Rabbi Offel is a member of the Senior Resource Faculty of the National Center for Jewish Healing, and is a Partner of the Kalsman Institute on Judaism and Health. She has written "The Mitzvah of Bikkur Cholim: A Model for Building Community in Contemporary Synagogues" for the National Center for Jewish Healing based upon her work in co-developing a program in Southern California, the Chesed Project. With Rabbis Nancy Flam and Amy Eilberg, she also co-authored "Acts of Lovingkindness: A Training Manual for Bikkur Holim." In addition to being a former Lehmann Faculty Fellow of the Brandeis Bardin Institute, Rabbi Offel developed a pilot Community Rabbi program in the San Fernando Valley, and continues to speak to Jewish, Christian interfaith and secular groups around Southern California on a variety of topics related to Judaism.

Rabbi Offel has served the national Reform rabbinate in a number of capacities. She is a member of the Budget and Finance Committee of the Central Con ference of American Rabbis (CCAR) and formerly served for six years on the Conference's National Convention Planning Committee. A former board member of the Pacific Association of Reform Rabbis, she has also assisted the Reform movement as a peer rabbinic mentor for the CCAR Committee on Ethics and Appeals and as a mentor for the HUC-JIR/CCAR Joint Commission of the Rabbinic Mentoring Institute. Prior to entering rabbinical school, Rabbi Offel spent 13 years in the business world where her career took her from early positions in marketing and special events planning to, ultimately, the position of President/CEO in a turnaround publishing company venture. Ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), Rabbi Offel received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communication Studies from UCLA and a Master of Arts Degree in Hebrew Letters from HUC-JIR.