Clergy & Staff

Rabbi Rachel Timoner

Rabbi Rachel Timoner is grateful and proud to serve as Senior Rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope, Brooklyn. She is honored to stand with families at the moments of greatest joy and deepest sorrow in their lives, and she is delighted to be part of a flowering of creativity, community, learning, spirituality, and action at CBE.

Her initiatives in recent years include a weekly class designed to get to the heart and meaning of the prayer experience, a rabbinic conversation on antisemitism, a study series on systemic racism in America, a weekly class about peoplehood and nationalism, a sukkah about the refugee experience, a dialogue and study series on Israel, a revival of CBE’s youth group, a partnership with Antioch Baptist Church to address racism and antisemitism in Brooklyn, and a Dismantling Racism Team which was part of the successful campaigns to Raise the Age of criminal responsibility and to win bail reform in the State of New York. She helped to launch RAC-NY and Reform California, two statewide efforts to bring Reform Jewish values to bear on core issues of our times, such as immigration, affordable housing, and racial profiling. In November 2016, Rabbi Timoner, in cooperation with City Councilmember Brad Lander, co-founded #GetOrganizedBK in CBE’s sanctuary, so that over the next two years, ten thousand Brooklyn neighbors came together to resist autocracy and protect human rights. In May 2022, she gathered 55 women rabbis of all denominations to meet with the mayor to change the face of Jewish leadership in New York. On any given Shabbat, you’ll find Rabbi Timoner speaking about our purpose as Jews and human beings, the moral challenges of our times, the ways we need each other, and awakening to the spiritual aspect of our lives.

From 2009 to 2015, Rabbi Timoner served as Associate Rabbi of Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles, where she was a teacher of Torah and helped to develop the Shabbat Morning Minyan, Community of Elders, Spirituality Workshop, and Community Organizing Leadership Team that took on public transportation and economic justice.

Previously, Rabbi Timoner raised funds to rebuild the San Francisco Women’s Building; worked to mitigate the harm of welfare reform in California; and founded two leadership programs and a peer hotline for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth.

She is a graduate of Yale University, received s’micha from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and was a Rockefeller Next Generation Leadership Fellow and a Wexner Graduate Fellow. Rabbi Timoner serves on the board of the New York Jewish Agenda, the Brooklyn Community Foundation, the New York Board of Rabbis, the UJA-Federation of New York, Plaza Community Chapel, and the International Council of the New Israel Fund. She is a T’ruah chavera and is a graduate of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality’s Clergy Leadership Program and the Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training. She is the author of Breath of Life: God as Spirit in Judaism.

Click here to view Rabbi Timoner’s past High Holy Days sermons.

Cantor Josh Breitzer

Cantor Josh Breitzer (he/him) has joyfully served Brooklyn’s Congregation Beth Elohim since receiving ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 2011. He leads the community through prayer and song, teaches chanting and ritual skills to people of all ages, and helps turn special moments into sacred occasions. After more than a decade of his innovative cantorial stewardship, CBE has become a beacon of dynamic, pluralistic ritual activity, attracting international attention and growing to over 1000 member units.

Named by The Forward in its “Soundtrack of Our Spirit” series as one of the best new Jewish music voices, Cantor Breitzer has sung at concert halls and synagogues across the country. He appears throughout the PBS documentary “The Four Sons And All Their Sons: A Passover Tale” and helped create the New York Festival of Song’s acclaimed cabaret “A Goyishe Christmas to You” in which he has performed every year since 2010. Among his most influential mentors were Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Yehudi Wyner, Cantor Lawrence Avery, and Dr. Jack Gottlieb, whose artistic legacy Cantor Breitzer continues to preserve and promote.

Cantor Breitzer proudly hails from mid-Michigan and spent formative summers at Interlochen Arts Camp, later earning voice degrees from the University of Michigan and the New England Conservatory. Committed to inspiring the next generation of Jewish music makers, he was the founding conductor of HaZamir Brooklyn, a chapter of HaZamir: The International Jewish Teen Choir, and has been on faculty at multiple URJ summer camps. He has presented classes at the North American Jewish Choral Festival, the Academy for Jewish Religion, and at the Abraham Geiger Kolleg in Potsdam, Germany.

As a dedicated instructor at the HUC-JIR Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music, Cantor Breitzer advises and coaches students and teaches courses on integrative repertoire for Shabbat and Yom Kippur. An alumnus of the Clergy Leadership Program of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, he strives to model in all his work how one might weave traditional and contemporary liturgical settings into a holistic, compelling prayer experience. His former cantorial interns have gone on to serve prominent communities throughout the progressive Jewish world.

Having volunteered for the American Conference of Cantors in several capacities since his own HUC student years, Cantor Breitzer was elected to the ACC board in 2015 and to the officer team in 2016. From 2016-2019 he was Vice President for Professional Development, External Policy and Placement, and from 2019-2022 he was Vice President for Member Relations and External Partnerships. In 2022, he was installed as Vice President for Internal Policy and Administration.

Together with his wife Donna and their children Jonah and Gideon, Cantor Breitzer makes a home in Park Slope. He relishes the city’s multitude of mass transit systems, doing the New York Times Sunday Crossword, and crafting puns of varying quality for his extremely tolerant family and friends.

Rabbi Stephanie Kolin

Rabbi Stephanie Kolin is a rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim. She previously served as the rabbi of Union Temple, as a rabbi of Central Synagogue in Manhattan, and Associate Rabbi at Temple Israel in Boston. Before moving back to NYC, Rabbi Kolin was national Co-Director of the Union for Reform Judaism’s Just Congregations, then the community organizing arm of the Reform Movement, and lead organizer and a founder of Reform CA (now RAC-CA), a statewide campaign of Reform congregations to work for a more just and compassionate California. Rabbi Kolin is an Auburn Seminary Senior Fellow and is a contributing author to the Reform Movement’s book on social justice, Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice. She has served as an adjunct professor of the Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles and as faculty at the Wexner Foundation. Rabbi Kolin grew up in NYC and lives in Brooklyn with her wife, Jocelyn, and their five year old daughter.

Rabbi Matthew Green

Evan Traylor

Evan Traylor (he/him) is a fourth-year rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and thrilled to be the rabbinic intern at CBE! Evan is a Wexner Graduate Fellow and a Tisch Fellow, and currently serves on the boards of Encounter and JOIN For Justice, and on the leadership team for the HUC-JIR Soup Kitchen. Prior to rabbinical school, he worked at the Union for Reform Judaism for several years creating new initiatives in college and young adult engagement. Originally from Oklahoma City, Evan graduated from the University of Kansas studying political science, Jewish studies, and leadership studies. He is an alum of URJ Greene Family Camp and URJ Kutz Camp, and served as the North American President of NFTY, the Reform Jewish youth movement. Evan lives in Brooklyn with his wife Lindsey and their tiny dog, Ruby Nakia.

Leslie Goldberg

Rabbi Gerald I. Weider

Rabbi Gerald I. Weider was ordained in 1973 from the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati Ohio. He served two congregations before coming to Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn. His first congregation was Temple Ohabei Shalom in Brookline, Massachusetts where he served as the Assistant Rabbi. His second pulpit was Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington D.C. where he served as the Associate Rabbi.

For 28 years Rabbi Weider served as the Senior Rabbi at CBE. He joined Rabbi Eugene J. Sack in 1978, just as the Brownstone Revival movement hit Park Slope. Under his leadership, CBE grew to become the largest and most active Reform synagogues in Brooklyn.

Upon retirement from CBE in June 2006, Rabbi Weider assumed the position of Senior Rabbinic Consultant to the Rabbinic Cabinet of the Jewish Federations of North America. In this role Rabbi Weider worked on the national level with over 1,000 rabbis (Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox) who were members of the Rabbinic Cabinet. Rabbi Weider retired from this position in 2016.

Rabbi Weider and his wife Rosalie are parents of two sons, Avi and Alex Weider, and they are grandparents of triplets (two boys and a girl). Rabbi Weider and Rosalie continue to reside in Brooklyn, New York.

Rabbi Dr. Linda Henry Goodman

A native New Yorker, Rabbi Goodman came to Union Temple in 1992. She has long been a champion of women’s rights, outspokenly fighting to protect reproductive choice and health care access for women in New York State and throughout the country. She participates actively in the Reform Jewish Voice of New York State, and serves on the Clergy Advisory Board of Concerned Clergy for Choice in Albany. In 2012, she was installed as the first woman to serve as President of The New York Board of Rabbis. For many years she has studied at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, and in July of 2016 became a Senior Rabbinic Fellow of that Institute. She received rabbinic ordination from Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, from which she also holds a Master of Arts in Hebrew Literature, a Doctor of Ministry, and an Honorary Doctor of Divinity degree. She has served as Assistant Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El of New York, as Hillel Director and Jewish Chaplain at Adelphi University, and on the Jewish Studies faculties of Molloy College and the New York Theological Seminary. A talented musician, she holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Queens College and The Mannes College of Music (now renamed Mannes College the New School for Music after a move to The New School), earned an M.A. from Queens College, and taught at both schools as well as at SUNY Purchase. Music has always been a dominant source of her inspiration in life. She is married to Rabbi Stephen Wise Goodman, and they have an adult son, Philip.

Rabbi Molly Kane

Rabbi Molly Kane is thrilled to be CBE’s new Director of Youth and Family Programs. Rabbi Kane most recently served for ten years as the Associate Rabbi-Educator at Brooklyn Heights Synagogue. Rabbi Kane focuses on the full arc of childhood and family experiences and education — from birth through the teen years — bringing an overarching and integrated vision to oversee our world-class directors of the Early Childhood Center, Yachad, and Afterschool/Camps.

After graduating from Brandeis University, Rabbi Kane worked for five years as an informal Jewish educator in the Youth Department of the Union for Reform Judaism. During that time she served in leadership positions at the URJ Eisner Camp, the URJ Kutz Camp, and the NFTY in Israel summer program. She then earned an M.A. in nonprofit management from The New School University, went on to rabbinical school, and was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 2011. During her time at HUC-JIR she served as the rabbinic intern at Congregation Kolot Chayeinu and completed a summer residency as a chaplain at the University of California Medical Center. In 2017, Rabbi Kane completed a certificate in Jewish Spiritual Direction from HUC-JIR.

Rabbi Kane has roots in Chicago, Illinois, and Westport, Connecticut, and has lived in Park Slope since 2004. She travels to Israel often and is proud to have walked the Israel National Trail (shvil yisrael) in 2018. She enjoys writing and performing stand-up comedy and comedic songs, exercising in Prospect Park, drawing and painting, cooking, and spending time with her family and friends.

Jacqueline Israel

Jaci Israel is Director of CBE’s Early Childhood Center and has enjoyed a long relationship with CBE where she began her preschool teaching career in 1986. Since then she has coordinated Pre-K programs for several nonprofit agencies and initiated the Project Reach Youth’s Universal Pre-K Program. She has also worked extensively with elementary age students with learning disabilities as a teacher at the Mary McDowell Center and as an Orton Gillingham tutor. Jaci has a Bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education and a Master’s degree in Special Education. Her proudest achievements by far are her son and daughter.

Zach Rolf

Zach has been involved in Jewish engagement, education, and staff development for more than 15 years, and he is excited to build on that experience in joining the CBE team and serving our Brooklyn community. He holds a B.S. in Elementary Education from Skidmore College, an M.A. in Jewish Education from HUC-JIR, and is an alum of the Wexner Field Fellowship.

Zach began his career as an elementary school teacher in the New York City public schools. For over a decade, including during his time as a school teacher, he spent every summer working at the URJ Eisner Camp in Great Barrington, MA, ultimately serving as the Assistant Director of their day camp for many years. Zach joined Central Synagogue in 2009 as a full-time educator and subsequently served as Director of Youth Engagement and Director of the Religious School. During this time, he was awarded the Young Pioneer Award from The Jewish Education Project.

In 2016, Zach took on the role of Director of Learning & Engagement at Temple Emanuel in Denver, CO, where he supervised the directors of all education and engagement programming, including the nursery school, K-12 religious school, youth & adult engagement, and Shwayder Camp. In 2019, Zach returned to Central Synagogue to serve as Chief of Staff.

Zach grew up in Great Barrington, MA and prefers taking Route 22 to the Taconic when driving up to the Berkshires.

Meredith Gary

Meredith Gary is the former Co-Director of the Downtown Little School, a progressive preschool in lower Manhattan. Meredith earned a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from Wesleyan University and a Masters Degree in Early Childhood Education from Bank Street College. She has 28 years of experience in the field of early childhood education. In addition to her work as a school director, Meredith leads guided support groups and workshop series for parents. She is a NY-NAEYC Professional Development Specialist and first came to the ECC as a staff workshop leader. Meredith is also the author of a children’s book published by HarperCollins: Sometimes You Get What You Want. Meredith and her husband Brian are longtime Park Slope-ers with two children, Audrey and Ian, who both became b’nei mitzvot at CBE. Meredith is also a baker, mystery reader, cat lover and mahjong player. She’s thrilled to be joining the ECC community and to play a role in the exciting expansion to Prospect Heights.

Katie Browning

Before starting at the ECC in her role as Associate Director in the fall of 2021, Katie Browning had been with the ECC for the previous three years as the Early Childhood Consultant, coaching teachers around curriculum development, supporting team partnerships, and developing strategies to support students’ learning at the ECC. She has an extension background in preschool school education, as a classroom teacher, and as a special educator. Katie began her teaching career as a classroom teacher at the Little Program at the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School, and after completing her master’s degree in special education, she joined the staff at Rivendall in 1996 as a special education itinerant teacher (SEIT). As a SEIT, she lent her special education expertise to classroom teachers and families while working to support students in a variety of preschool settings, including the ECC. Katie’s work over the years has also included the provision of workshops to teachers and parents, carrying out educational evaluations, and private tutoring.

Rabbi Andrue (Andy) Kahn

Rabbi Andrue (Andy) Kahn (he/they) grew up in Tacoma, Washington, and has lived in New York since 2009. Prior to starting rabbinical school at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, he received a BA from Kenyon College in Ohio, an MA from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and an MA from the Jewish Theological Seminary in Manhattan. He served as associate rabbi at Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York from 2018 to 2023, where he has invigorated community members in their 20s and 30s, organized interfaith programming, and led people of all ages in deep Jewish learning geared towards spiritual development. His edited volume The Sacred Earth: Jewish Perspectives on our Planet, was published in June 2023 by CCAR Press. He has been a Brooklynite since 2010, and currently lives in Gowanus with his partner Mia and their dog Babka.

Ari Wasserman

Rose Snitz

Rose Snitz (she/her) brings over a decade of experience as a songleader, worship leader, and educator in a diverse range of spaces and events. She has also spent numerous years working as a productivity coach and managerial consultant to create organizational systems and more. She attributes the foundation of who she is as a person and leader to her involvement within the URJ Camping and Youth Programs. She has participated, led, presented, and helped run conferences for Jewish musicians, clergy, educators, and—most importantly—teens. Rose spends her free time trying to catch the best sunsets, seeking the city’s greatest matzah ball soup, and perfecting her at-home Iced Aroma recipe. 

Tom Pnini

Tom Pnini is our ECC Admissions Coordinator and Art Studio Teacher. Tom runs our “Cardboard Studio”, a classroom that has been completely transformed into an interactive art studio for kids to explore their creative side without limits. Our preschool students work with Tom in the Cardboard Studio as part of their curriculum.

Outside of the ECC, Tom is a successful artist. He creates time-based works and large-scale installations. He has exhibited in museums and galleries in New York, Los Angeles, Milan, Toronto, Moscow, and Israel. He holds a Bachelor of Education degree from Hamidrasha College (2008) and an Master of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design at the New School (2010).

Debbie Brukman

Adva Zingher

Adva has been a Brooklynite for 8 years having moved here from Westborough, MA. She attended school at University of Hartford and has worked previously at Kane Street Synagogue under Rabbi Valerie Lieber. Adva is excited to join the Yachad team and help CBE families learn all about their Jewish heritage and community!

Caitlyn Bradley

Caitlyn Bradley is the Department Coordinator for the Early Childhood Center. She began working at CBE in 2008 as an extended day helper in the ECC. Caitlyn then moved to the CBE KIDS Afterschool Program where she worked as a counselor and an administrative assistant. She finally came full circle and started working in the ECC again in 2016. Caitlyn was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She received a Bachelor of Arts from St. Francis College in 2013.

Tanell Dominique Lewis

Mark Flaxer

Mark Flaxer joins us from South Florida, where he was an interim executive director at Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center. While there, he helped set them up for future success in their key areas of board development, financialstewardship, streamlined technology, and the challenges of the pandemic. His previous executive director roles were at Temple Beth Sholom in Miami Beach and Temple Emanu-el in Atlanta. Each of these synagogues has its unique size, budget, demographic, and challenges, which gave Mark the ex-perience of overseeing multiple facilities, varied programming, creative fundraising, small and large schools, clergy transitions, staff development, and security and weather crises. Before his career in synagogue management, Mark was in the for-profit worldin Atlanta for over 25 years. He was the vice president of sales for a large in-ternational company and subsequently owned several of his own businesses,including a sports-management company dedicated to developing lacrosse athletes, coaches and programs throughout the metro Atlanta area. (Fun fact: Mark is a certified youth lacrosse coach and referee!)Mark celebrates his 30th anniversary this year with his wife, Staci. They have two daughters, Abby and Janine.

Karen Gerwin

Prior to joining the staff at CBE, Karen spent five years as a Consulting Editor for TueNight, a website for women over 40, producing their weekly newsletter and live events, managing their social media accounts, moderating their Facebook group, and cultivating new writers. She spent the first part of her career working in the publishing industry as a literary agent.

Karen and her husband Michael moved to Park Slope in 1996. They have raised their son and daughter here — from the ECC years through B’nei Mitzvah and Chazakah — and feel incredibly lucky to be a part of this warm and loving community.

Maribeth Batcha

Rabbi Jason Gitlin

Rabbi Jason Gitlin steps into a new CBE position that works to weave community members into small groups that can draw them toward one another and Jewish life. He most recently served for five years as Kane Street Synagogue’s Engagement Director.

Jason began his career as a news reporter, editor, and columnist, was a communications and interfaith affairs director at UJA-Federation of New York for several years, and then pursued the rabbinate. After ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary, he directed the Seminary’s ReFrame program for experiential Jewish education. He has an MA in Near Eastern Studies from New York University, a BA in journalism from the University of Colorado, a certificate from the Muehlstein Institute for Jewish Professional Leadership, and was a fellow at Yeshivat Hadar and the Conservative Yeshiva.

An avid city walker, amateur naturalist, and Pirkei Avot devotee, Rabbi Gitlin was also a founding member of Brooklyn Jews. He is thrilled to help make CBE be a place where everyone can find their way and their people.

Nate Jaffe

Nate Jaffe joined the CBE team in August 2018. Before coming to CBE, he graduated from Goucher College with a B.A. in Theater and Communications/Media Studies.

Throughout his life, Nate has been heavily involved in Reform Judaism. He is a proud alum of URJ Eisner Camp, where he spent 14 consecutive summers as a camper and staff member, and of NFTY-Northeast. Nate is proud and grateful to continue his journey at CBE.

Kimberly Lisi

Kimberly Lisi joined CBE in May 2021 with the merger of Union Temple, where she worked in the preschool and temple offices since 2011. Prior to that she spent 20+ years working for magazine publishers, including Time Inc, Conde Nast, and Rodale Press. Kimberly has a B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania and lives across the park in Lefferts Manor with her husband, daughter, mother, rabbit and two dogs.

Rose Eilenberg

Anna Solomon

Jenna Lindie

Rana Bickel

Steve Mustacchi

Tamisha Rappaport

Shameela Singh

Briam Leon

Lenworth “Marcus” Wilson

Vernon Williams

Travis John

Sergio Ramos

Derron John

Peter Woodhouse