Rabbis For Human Rights - North America

Board

“Yossi Ben Yo'ezer from Tzreida said:

'Let your home be a gathering place for scholars, get dusty (wrestle) in the dust of their feet, and drink in their words with thirst.'" (Pirkei Avot 1:4)

Board and Advisory Board

Board Executive Committee

 

Rabbi Charles M. Feinberg, Co-Chair

Rabbi Charles M. Feinberg is a rabbi at Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, DC. He has served Conservative congregations in Madison, WI, Poughkeepsie, NY and Vancouver, BC. He has been active in inter-group relations throughout his career, serving as the Chairperson of Dutchess Outreach, a social service agency in Poughkeepsie, and chairing the Vancouver Multifaith Society. From 1991-1996, Rabbi Feinberg was the Chairperson of the Social Action Committee of the Rabbinical Assembly.

 

Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg, Co-Chair

Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg has been the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek in Chester, CT since July 2007 and before that served as an Assistant/Associate Rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, TX. Rabbi Goldenberg was ordained in 2003 by Hebrew Union College and is an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program. Rabbi Goldenberg is a member of the Rabbinic Cabinet of J Street, convenes the Valley Shore Clergy Association and is a member of the New Haven Board of Rabbis. She is also a participant in the rabbinic leadership program of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.

 

Rabbi Robert Dobrusin, Vice Chair

Rabbi Robert Dobrusin has served as Rabbi of Beth Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor, Michigan since 1988. A native of Boston, Rabbi Dobrusin received his B.A. from Brandeis University and ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He is actively involved in Jewish education and interfaith dialogue and has actively supported Rabbis for Human Rights for over 10 years. Rabbi Dobrusin is an accomplished writer of textual commentary and analysis of contemporary Jewish issues. He also writes and speaks on other topics including baseball and travel. He and his wife Ellen are the parents of two teenagers.

 

Rabbi Alana Suskin, Secretary

Rabbi Alana Suskin is an educator and a writer published in dozens of anthologies and journals, including Bridges, Lilith and Sh’ma and the New Jewish Feminism: Probing the Past, Forging the Future, a finalist in the 2010 National Jewish Book Award. Before receiving her ordination at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles, she received B.A.s in Russian Literature and Philosophy, as well as an M.A. in Philosophy and a graduate certificate in Women’s Studies. She is a senior managing editor of Jewschool.com, and sits on the boards of RHR-NA and American Rights at Work.

 

Rabbi Gerry Serotta, Treasurer

Rabbi Gerald Serotta is the Co-Founder and current Executive Director of Clergy Beyond Borders, a multi- faith organization that trains and leads clergy missions for conflict resolution and peace building. He also serves as the Rabbi of Shirat HaNefesh Congregation in Chevy Chase, MD. Rabbi Serotta formerly served as a Hillel Rabbi for 28 years, the last 20 at The George Washington University. Aside from his professional work, Rabbi Serotta has for decades been a national leader in the Jewish community in the area of social justice. He was the founder and served as first Chair of RHR-NA from 2001–2009.

 

Rabbi Joyce Galaski

Rabbi Joyce Galaski has been the rabbi of Congregation Ahavas Achim in Westfield, Massachusetts since September 2000.  She also serves as the Jewish chaplain at the Ferst Interfaith Center at Westfield State University.  She is a 1998 graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.  Rabbi Galaski was the founding director of Jews Against Genocide in Bosnia from 1993 to 1996, and was one of the leaders of the American Committee to Save Bosnia.  An avid hiker and snowshoer, she lives in Amherst, MA with her husband Philippe and is the mother of three grown daughters.

 

Rabbi Mordechai Liebling

Rabbi Mordechai Liebling is the Director of the Social Justice Organizing Program at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. He previously served as the Executive Vice-President of Jewish Funds for Justice, the Torah of Money Director of the Shefa Fund, and the Executive Director of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. He is on the boards of the Faith and Politics Institute and the Shalom Center. He and his life-partner Lynne facilitate Awakening The Dreamer, Changing the Dream symposiums.

 

 

Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub

Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub, LCSW, serves as Rabbinic Director of the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services (JBFCS), one of the nation’s largest social service and mental health agencies, serving over 65,000 New Yorkers of all ethnic groups through 175 programs in and around New York City. As a rabbi and a social worker, his particular focus at JBFCS is the work of the New York Jewish Healing Center and the National Center for Jewish Healing, which seeks to help those who are ill, caregivers, bereaved individuals and survivors of trauma access the spiritual resources of the Jewish community and tradition. Rabbi Weintraub is a founding Board member of RHR-NA, and has been committed to human rights advocacy, Jewish- Muslim and Jewish-Arab relationship-building and interfaith exchange for over 30 years.

 

 

Board Members

 

Rabbi Anna Boswell-Levy

Since July 2008, Anna Boswell-Levy has served as the Rabbi and Educator Director of Tzedek v'Shalom, a dynamic Reconstructionist congregation dedicated to the integration of spiritual life, learning, social activism and community located in Newtown, PA. She graduated from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 2006. She is currently a Board Member of RENA - Reconstructionist Educators of North America and is on the Rabbinic Cabinet of J Street.

 

 

 

Rabbi Sharon Brous

Sharon Brous is the founding rabbi of IKAR, a spiritual community dedicated to reanimating Jewish life through soulful religious practice that is rooted in a deep commitment to social justice. She was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2001 and received a Master’s Degree in Human Rights from Columbia University, where she also received her Bachelor’s Degree. After ordination, Rabbi Brous served as a Rabbinic Fellow at Congregation B'nai Jeshurun in New York. She's been listed among the Forward’s 50 Most Influential American Jews and Newsweek’s 50 Most Influential Rabbis in America, is a panelist on Newsweek and The Washington Post’s “On Faith” and was a guest on Krista Tippet’s Speaking of Faith on NPR. She serves on the faculty REBOOT and serves on the rabbinic advisory board of American Jewish World Service and the regional council of Progressive Jewish Alliance, and is a member of the Task Force to Advance Multireligious Collaboration on Global Poverty. Rabbi Brous lives in Los Angeles with her husband, David, and three children – Eva, Sami and Levi.

 

Rabbi Dr. Aryeh Cohen

Rabbi Aryeh Cohen is Associate Professor of Rabbinic Literature at American Jewish University. Dr. Cohen is the author of Rereading Talmud: Gender, Law and the Poetics of Sugyot, co-editor of Beginning/Again: Towards a Hermeneutics of Jewish Texts and the forthcoming Justice in the City: Toward a Community of Obligation , as well as numerous scholarly and popular articles. Dr. Cohen is one of the founders of the Shtibl, a Hassidic egalitarian minyan. He is also a member of the Sh’ma Advisory Board, a Board Member and the past President of the Progressive Jewish Alliance and involved in Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, Los Angeles. Actively engaged in interfaith work, he participated in the Scriptural Reasoning Group at the Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton University and is a member of the Scriptural Reasoning Theory Group sponsored by the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University.

 

Rabbi Ayelet S. Cohen

Rabbi Ayelet S. Cohen served for 10 years at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the world’s largest LGBT synagogue serving people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. Passionately committed to progressive and feminist Judaism, she is an activist and an advocate for full inclusion and celebration of LGBT Jews in the Jewish world, and an advocate for LBGT civil rights. Rabbi Cohen has been profiled in the New York Times, was named one of the “Heeb 100,” Heeb Magazine’s “hundred people you need to know about,” and was honored at the 2005 Ma’yan Seder as a leading young Jewish feminist activist. She is a member of the Rabbinical Assembly and the New York Board of Rabbis.

 

 

Rabbi Tirzah Firestone

Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, M.A., is an author, psychotherapist, and spiritual leader of Congregation Nevei Kodesh in Boulder, Colorado. Widely known for her groundbreaking work on the re-integration of the feminine wisdom tradition within Judaism, Rabbi Firestone lectures and teaches throughout the U.S. on spirituality, meditation, and the integration of ancient mystical wisdom into contemporary life. A leader in the international movement for the renewal of Judaism, she lives in Colorado with her husband David and their three children.

 

 

Rabbi Jarah Greenfield

Rabbi Jarah Greenfield is the spiritual leader of Reconstructionist Temple Beth Israel in Maywood, NJ and a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, where she served as President of the Reconstructionist Student Association As a RHR-NA Board Member, she Co-Chaired the 2010 Conference on Judaism and Human Rights. Rabbi Greenfield is a member of the North Jersey Board of Rabbis and an International Vice Chair of Rabbis for Women of the Wall. She has served as interim and assistant principal of B’nai Jeshurun Hebrew School in New York City and spent a year studying at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education before entering rabbinical school.  

 

Rabbi Maurice Harris

Maurice Harris recently completed an eight year tenure as one of Temple Beth Israel of Eugene, Oregon's rabbis. During that time he worked as Head of School for the synagogue's religious school and led a dramatic expansion of the adult education program. A graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Maurice and his family live in Eugene, where he now works as a writer and teacher. Rabbi Harris has been a long time activist on behalf of human rights issues in North America and the Middle East, and his op-eds and essays on human rights issues from a Jewish-values perspective have been published in various secular and Jewish periodicals. His first book, Moses: A Stranger Among Us, is being published by Cascade Books and is due out in 2012. Maurice and his spouse, Melissa, are the parents of two children, Clarice and Hunter.

 

Rabbi Aaron Levy

Rabbi Aaron Levy is the founder and director of Makom: Creative Downtown Judaism, named one of North America’s 50 most innovative Jewish nonprofits in Slingshot ’10-’11. He inspires diverse Jews and non-Jews by fusing ritual and ethical practice, by teaching in an open-minded and intellectually serious style, and by making Judaism’s joy and playfulness apparent through musical, participatory prayer. Aaron is a leader in the revival of downtown Jewish life in Toronto, where he also teaches percussion and is a sought-out educator on a wide variety of Jewish topics, especially ethical eating, environmentalism, spirituality, pluralism and social justice. Originally from Rockville, Maryland, Aaron was ordained in 2004 in the first graduating class of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah in New York City. An avid drummer, hiker, vegan and urban gardener, he is married to Miriam Kramer and they live in downtown Toronto with their son, Elior.

 

Rabbi Andrea London

Rabbi Andrea London has served at Beth Emet The Free Synagogue in Evanston, IL since July 2000. In July of 2010 she became the Senior Rabbi of Beth Emet, only the third rabbi to hold the position in the synagogue’s 60 year history. In her ten years at Beth Emet, Rabbi London has worked to build bridges between Chicago-area Jews, Christians, and Muslims. She is Co-Chair of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs’ Jewish-Muslim Community-Building Initiative. In 2007, Rabbi London introduced Beth Emet to the Union of Reform Judaism’s Just Congregations initiative, sparking discussions on local, regional, and national issues as an initial step to developing new social action efforts on issues of communal concern. Rabbi London is also a past Board Member of the Interfaith Youth Core, and of Chicago Peace Now, and is on the Rabbinic Advisory Committee of J Street. She is married to Danny London and has two children, Yonah and Liora.

 

Rabbi Paula Marcus

Rabbi Paula Marcus was ordained by the Academy for Jewish Religion in Los Angeles, a trans-denominational seminary. She has served Temple Beth El in Aptos, CA since 1979. Rabbi Marcus chairs the Ethics Committee of OHALAH-The Association of Rabbis for Jewish Renewal. Rabbi Marcus actively demonstrates her commitment to exploring spirituality and learning as a worship and ritual leader, teacher, peacemaker and social justice activist.

 

 

 

Rabbi Sid Schwarz

Rabbi Sid Schwarz is a senior fellow at Clal: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. He founded and led PANIM: The Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values for 21 years, an organization that is dedicated to inspiring, training and empowering Jewish youth to a life of leadership, activism and service. He is also the founding rabbi of Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, MD where he continues to teach and lead services. Dr. Schwarz holds a Ph.D. in Jewish history and is the author of two groundbreaking books--Finding a Spiritual Home: How a New Generation of Jews Can Transform the American Synagogue and Judaism and Justice: The Jewish Passion to Repair the World.  In 2002 Dr. Schwarz was awarded the prestigious Covenant Award for his pioneering work in the field of Jewish education. In 2007 he was named by Newsweek one of the 50 Most Influential Rabbis in America.

 

Rabbi Ellen Lippmann

Rabbi Ellen Lippmann is founder and rabbi of Kolot Chayeinu/Voices of Our Lives, a progressive community in Brooklyn, where doubt can be an act of faith and whose members are creative, serious seekers who pray joyfully, wrestle with tradition, pursue justice and refuse to be satisfied with the world as it is. She served as the first social justice chair for the Women’s Rabbinic Network, and has served on numerous rabbinic advisory boards. She is co-founder of the 22-year-old Feeding the Homeless program at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and co-founder of the Children of Abraham Peace Walk: Jews, Christians and Muslims Walking Together in Brooklyn in Peace. Rabbi Ellen Lippmann is a former Co-Chair of the Board of Rabbis for Human Rights - North America.

 

Rabbi Nancy Wiener

Rabbi Nancy H. Wiener, D. Min., is the Clinical Director of the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Center for Pastoral Counseling and was named the Paul and Trudy Steinberg Chair in Human Relations at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, NY in 2010. She was ordained at HUC-JIR, where she additionally earned a Doctor of Ministry in Pastoral Counseling and a M.A. in Hebrew Letters.  She also holds a M.A. in Jewish History from Columbia University.  Rabbi Wiener also serves as the rabbi of the Pound Ridge Jewish Community.  Her publications include Judaism for Two: A Spiritual Guide for Strengthening and Celebrating Your Loving Relationship, Beyond Breaking the Glass: A Spiritual Guide to Your Jewish Wedding,  Meeting at the Well: A Jewish Spiritual Guide to Being Engaged, co-authored with Rabbi Daniel Judson,  “A Reform Understanding of To’eivah” in the CCAR Journal, “Counseling Same-Sex Couples as They Sanctify Their Love,” in New Menorah Journal,, “Of Women and Mirrors,” in A Women’s Torah Commentary: 54 Women Rabbis on the Weekly Torah Portions, ed. Elyse Goldstein, “A Practical Theology of Presence," in Lesbian Rabbis: The First Generation, and “Jewish Marriage: From Legal Transaction to Spiritual Transition” in the CCAR Journal.

 

 

 

Advisory Board

 

Rabbi Brad Artson

Rabbi Jerome Davidson

Rabbi Elliot Dorff

Rabbi Amy Eilberg

Rabbi David Ellenson

Rabbi Edward Feld

Rabbi Laura Geller

Rabbi Neil Gillman

Rabbi Marc Gopin

Rabbi Roberto Graetz

Rabbi Arthur Green

Rabbi Susan Grossman

Rabbi J. Rolando Matalon

Rabbi Paul Menitoff

Rabbi David Saperstein