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Synagogue 3000 Staff
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Ron Wolfson, President
Ron Wolfson is a visionary Jewish educator whose enthusiasm for bringing Judaism alive in homes and synagogues has shaped his work in the community.Ron is the Fingerhut Professor of Education at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles where he has been a member of the faculty since 1975. He has also served as Dean of the Fingerhut School of Education, Vice President and Founding Director of the Whizin Center for the Jewish Future and the Whizin Institute for Jewish Family Life.The book, First Fruit: A Whizin Anthology of Jewish Family Education, which he co-edited with Adrianne Bank, won the 1999 Jewish Book Award.
Ron's interest in synagogues dates back to his involvement in a Conservative congregation, Beth El, in his home town of Omaha, Nebraska. Over the years, he has visited hundreds of synagogues across North America as a consultant, teacher and scholar in residence widely recognized for his passionate, insightful and often humorous presentations. Ron is a co-founder of Synagogue 2000 (with Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman) and currently serves as President of Synagogue 3000, a catalyst for excellence, empowering congregations and communities to create synagogues that are sacred and vital centers of Jewish life.
Ron is the author most recently of The Spirituality of Welcoming: How to Transform Your Congregation Into a Sacred Community and God's To-Do List: 103 Ways to Be an Angel and Do God's Work on Earth (Jewish Lights Publishing). A pioneer in the field of Jewish family education, Ron has authored The Art of Jewish Living series of books (Jewish Lights Publishing): Three of the titles (Shabbat, The Passover, Hanukkah) are designed to enrich the celebration of Jewish holidays, and one ( A Time to Mourn, A Time to Comfort) provides a guide to Jewish bereavement and comfort.
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Larry Hoffman, Senior Academic Fellow
For nearly thirty years, Larry Hoffman has combined research in Jewish
ritual, worship, and spirituality with a passion for the spiritual
renewal of American Judaism. Larry has written or edited twenty-five
books, including The Journey Home (Beacon, 2003), a study in Jewish
Spirituality derived from Jewish texts. He is also general editor of My
People's Prayer Book (Jewish Lights Publishing), a multi-volume edition
of the Siddur accompanied by modern commentaries from across the
spectrum of Jewish life. His best known scholarly works include The
Canonization of the Synagogue Service (University of Notre Dame Press,
1979); Beyond the Text (Indiana University Press, 1987); and Covenant of
Blood: Circumcision and Gender in Rabbinic Judaism (University of
Chicago Press, 1995). For a general audience, he has written The Way
Into Jewish Prayer (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2000) and a revised
version of What is a Jew? (Macmillan, 1993), the most widely read
introduction to Judaism, that has sold over 500,000 copies since its
inception. In 1999, The Art of Public Prayer (Skylight Paths Publishing)
was revised expressly for use by worship or ritual committees intent on
enriching congregational prayer. He is the author of Rethinking Synagogues: A New Vocabulary for Congregational Life (Jewish Lights Publishing), which summarizes what he has learned from the past
decade's work with Synagogue 2000 and now Synagogue 3000.
Larry's writings, both popular and scholarly, have appeared in eight
languages and four continents, and include contributions to various
encyclopedias and journals, including such places as The Macmillan
Encyclopedia of Religion, The Oxford Dictionary of Religion, The Oxford
Handbook of Jewish Studies, The Encyclopedia of Judaism, Worship, Studio
Liturgica, and The Fordham Law Review. His regular column for The Jewish
Week, the largest Jewish newspaper in North America, is syndicated in
the United States and Europe.
Larry was ordained as a rabbi in 1969, received his Ph.D. in 1973, and
has served since then as Professor of Liturgy at the Hebrew Union
College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. From 1984 to 1987, he
also directed HUC-JIR's School of Sacred Music. In 2003, he was named
the first Barbara and Stephen Friedman Professor of Liturgy, Worship and
Ritual. A Past President of the North American Academy of Liturgy, the
professional and academic organization for liturgists, Larry received
that organization's annual Berakhah Award in January 2004 for
outstanding lifetime contributions to his field. |
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Professor Steven M. Cohen, Director of Research
 Steven
M. Cohen, a sociologist of American Jewry, is Research Professor of
Jewish Social Policy at HUC-JIR and Director of the Florence G. Heller /
JCCA Research Center. In 1992 he made aliya and taught for 14 years at
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Previously, he taught at Queens
College, with visiting appointments at Yale, Brandeis, and JTS.
With Arnold Eisen, he wrote,
The Jew Within, and with Charles Liebman he wrote, Two Worlds
of Judaism: The Israeli and American Experiences. His earlier books
include American Modernity & Jewish Identity, and American
Assimilation or Jewish Revival?
He also serves as research consultant to the Andrea and Charles
Bronfman Philanthropies, and the Charles H. Revson Foundation.
His other major consultancies have included: Advancing Women
Professionals and the Jewish Community; the American Jewish Committee;
the Foundation for Jewish Camp; the Foundation for Jewish Culture; the
Jewish Agency for Israel; the Nathan Cummings Foundation; the UJA-Federation
of Greater Toronto; the UJA-Federation of New York; the Rabbinical
Assembly; the UJIA of Great Britain; and the United Jewish Communities. |
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Merri Lovinger Arian, Director of Music and S3K Consultant on Liturgical Arts
Merri Lovinger Arian specializes in using music to build Jewish identity and commitment. Merri serves on the faculty of the Hebrew Union College School of Sacred Music, teaching courses in Music Education, Conducting, Congregational Singing, and Guitar. She was recently appointed S3K's consultant on liturgical arts at HUC-JIR in New York, and in that role, supervises rabbinic and cantorial students in creating worship collaboratively at the college. She frequently serves as an invited music specialist for diverse audiences including the Wexner Heritage Foundation, the Union for Reform Judaism, the UJC Lions of Judah, the Women's League for Conservative Judaism, the Whizin Institute at the University of Judaism, and the Hava Nashira Institute for Songleaders, among others.Merri holds a Master of Arts in Teaching, a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music Education, and a Certificate in Music Therapy. She has sung with Debbie Friedman in Carnegie Hall, recorded songs for children, written on the educational value of youth choirs, and the use of music in creating sacred community, and has published a book and recording of her own choral arrangements. Her more recent projects for Synagogue 3000 include editing the music book, R'fuah Sh'leimah: Songs of Healing, and recording Nefesh: Songs for the Soul.
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Rabbi Jessica Zimmerman, Director of Congregational Engagement
Rabbi Jessica Zimmerman is Synagogue 3000's Director of Congregational
Engagement. She is passionate about helping synagogues transform into
kehillot kedoshot - sacred communities - and has been involved in
cutting-edge conversations about transformation throughout her time as a
rabbinical student and a rabbi.
As a student at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion,
Jessica learned with Synagogue 2000. As a fellow in
CLAL's interdenominational
conversations on Jewish life in America, Jessica engaged in new kinds of
thinking about the future of American Judaism. She went on to serve as a
Marshall T. Meyer Fellow at Congregation
B'nai Jeshurun in Manhattan and
then as the Grace and Horace Goldsmith Rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel in
Phoenix, Arizona. During her time in Phoenix, Jessica became a
STAR Peer Fellow and
continues to be involved in the Fellowship as an alumna. Jessica served as the
rabbi at the World Union for Progressive Judaism congregations in India and
Costa Rica. She also served as the student rabbi at the Community Synagogue in
Port Washington on Long Island, at Congregation Sherith Israel in San Francisco
and in The Juneau Jewish Community, in Juneau, Alaska. Rabbi Zimmerman graduated
from Columbia College, Columbia University in 1995, with a degree in art
history. She spent two years doing research in astronomy for the Department of
Astronomy and Astrophysics at Columbia and at Cerro Tololo Interamerican
Observatory in Chile before beginning her rabbinical studies in 1997, at Hebrew
Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem.
In addition to helping synagogues reshape their visions, Jessica is very
involved in interfaith issues, both learning and teaching. She has enjoyed her
work with the Center for
Jewish-Christian Understanding in Connecticut and it inspired her to
co-found, with Rev. Frank Shirvinski, Gesher: An Interfaith Bridge to
Understanding. Jessica is interested in helping to increase interfaith dialogue
in America and Israel. She is an active member of the Steering Committee for New
Generations of the New Israel Fund. |
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