A rabbi who spent much of his childhood in the Gateway City will be returning to his hometown to assume duties as spiritual leader of St. Louis Hillel at Washington University.

“I do have roots here,” said Rabbi Jordan Gerson, 32. “I have a lot of friends who are still in St. Louis, so it is nice to be home.”

The Parkway Central graduate is finishing up a three-year stint  at a small congregation in northern Florida,  where he served after attending at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles. Washington U. isn’t his first posting dealing with college-age youth. The Conservative rabbi was once a coordinator for the Lishma program at Camp Ramah in California, which focused on people 18-25.

Jacqueline Ulin Levey, president of the local Hillel, said Gerson’s education, training and experience make him the right person for the job, which became obvious during two visits to the university.

“During each of those times on campus, he engaged with stu

dents in different educational settings, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive,” she said. “He’s very easy to talk to, very warm, engaging and accessible. A significant portion of our work is not only programming, but also relationship-building with our students, developing personal, deep relationships over time.”

Hillel has lacked a full-time rabbi since Rabbi Andy Kastner left in June 2013 to become executive director of a new organization in San Diego.

“It was really too late at that point to initiate a search,” Levey said. “A lot of the talented rabbinical candidates had found other positions by that point.”

Instead, the hunt for a rabbi began early this year, a process that included interviews both in person and via Skype. 

“I saw this job posting in St. Louis,” said Gerson, who assumed his new title Sept. 22. “Growing up here, I know what kind of community the Washington University campus is. The students are bright. They are engaged. They are passionate. It was a great opportunity that presented itself.”

He said his biggest goal is to make the Reform minyan a weekly event. Unlike the Conservative and Orthodox gatherings, it is now monthly.

“I’d like to increase Jewish learning here on campus and do so in a fun, meaningful way by bringing in some dynamic programming that really helps connect the students to traditions, to Jewish Law, to our history, and helps them to create the connection that will springboard them into engaged adult life as active Jews,” Gerson said.

The rabbi feels strongly that students need ways to make Judaism relevant to their life and experiences.

“The students today are not like the students 10 years ago when I was in college,” he said, noting the emergence of smartphones and wired technology. “Everything is accessible to them on a moment’s notice. I feel like it was meant to make things easier and give people more time, but what it has really done is filled every single minute of our lives with the obligations that we have. Students can never get away from homework or the news or from learning what’s going on in the world. They are inundated with information all the time.”

They also are inundated with opportunities.

“Really, my job is empowerment, making sure students are able to create something of their own,” Gerson said.

For engaged, busy students, Judaic involvement can seem almost like an extracurricular activity, he said.

“But I’d like to help them understand that this is also a way to learn and engage and really connect to who they are as people,” Gerson said. “That’s what college is about. It is about defining who you are and coming into your own identity as adults.”

Gerson is already working with some of those adults on campus — and sometimes off-campus, including  attending a recent Matisyahu concert at the Pageant.

“Growing up here, I know what kind of community St. Louis is, and I was very happy to have the opportunity to provide my children with an upbringing similar to my own,” said Gerson, who has two daughers, Daliya and Ashira, with his wife, Becky.