Rabbi Elyse Winick ’86, the University’s Jewish Chaplain, is leaving the chaplaincy after almost nine years of service, Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel announced in a campus-wide email on Wednesday.

In a second email to the community on Wednesday evening, Winick wrote that she will start as the director of adult learning at Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston on Dec. 12. CJP is a nonprofit organization that serves the Greater Boston Jewish community through education, charity work and advocacy.

“The opportunity to have a full-time role in an institution which is transforming the Jewish community locally, nationally and internationally is one which I can't pass up,” Winick wrote in her email.

A Brandeis alumna, Winick served as the assistant director of Brandeis Hillel in the 1990s and returned as the Jewish Chaplain in 2008.

“She has served as an advocate, mentor and friend to hundreds of students, faculty, and staff, serving our community’s spiritual needs in times of both celebration and crisis and offering a haven for those in need of comfort,” Flagel wrote in his email.

“Rabbi Elyse Winick embodies the deepest values of Brandeis. We wish her the very best in her new endeavors, and take comfort in knowing she will always be a treasured member of the Brandeis family,” he added.

In her email, Winick described the role the University plays in her life: “To borrow a phrase, I bleed blue and white,” she wrote. “Brandeis holds pride of place in my heart and always will. The Brandeis family is my family. The blessing of having shared crises and celebrations and accompanying countless students on journeys of self-discovery has given me tremendous joy and fulfillment.”

“I can only hope that I have given back some measure of all that this experience has given me,” she added. “I cannot adequately express my gratitude to you for being a part of my own Brandeis journey.”

Rabbi Liza Stern, who taught in the Brandeis Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership program, and Rabbi Charlie Schwartz, the senior Jewish educator for the Brandeis Precollege Programs, will serve as co-interim chaplains after Winick departs, according to Flagel’s email. They will provide counsel, education and support to the campus Jewish community alongside Rabbi David Pardo of the Orthodox Union Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus, Flagel added.

As Flagel noted in his email, Winick’s departure comes as the University continues to search for a director of spiritual and religious life, a role he said will be instrumental in shaping the future of the chaplaincy. He added that the national search is already underway, with the search committee looking to have finalists on campus by January.