Welcome to the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue, a warm, caring, Jewishly diverse community dedicated to lifelong learning and to caring for the world and each other.
All are welcome to worship, study and celebrate with us.
| | | Since our founding in 1960, our members have shared celebration, lifelong learning, service, and worship. We value the diverse ways in which our members express their Jewish identities, as we maintain an abiding respect for the traditions of the Jewish people. We have over 330 member units made up of families, couples, and singles who live in the Brownstone Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Park Slope and Fort Greene, as well as in nearby DUMBO and Lower Manhattan.
All are welcome; you need not be a member to attend services or events. We look forward to greeting you!
Brooklyn Heights Synagogue is a member of the Union for Reform Judaism.
Leadership
Brooklyn Heights Synagogue is a lay-led community, with a 20-member Board of Trustees and an 8-member Executive Committee that meet regularly, and with many committees and task forces that take responsibility for events and programs at the Synagogue and in the larger community.
Our members are actively involved in all aspects of the congregation, from organizing events and shaping policies to planning the growth of our community. There is always something to do! We are happy to have our members assume leadership roles by joining a committee, serving on the board, coordinating a program, or volunteering for events. And we are happy just to have our members just be with us whenever we can provide community, comfort, learning, or fun.
Our leaders are also leaders in the Brooklyn Heights community, serving on the boards of the Brooklyn Historical Society, the Brooklyn Kindergarten Society, the Brooklyn Heights Association, the Brooklyn Bar Association, and other local organizations.
| Rabbi Serge Lippe
Rabbi
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Our much-loved spiritual leader and teacher, came to BHS in 1997. Ordained in 1991 at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) he graduated with honors from the University of Chicago with a B.A. degree in Ancient Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Prior to joining BHS, he served for six years as Associate Rabbi at Temple Solel in Paradise Valley, Arizona. Rabbi Lippe has also served as faculty member at URJ Camp SWIG and Camp Eisner, and has been a regional rabbinic adviser to the North American Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY). He and his wife, Deb Speyer, are native New Yorkers and they live in the neighborhood with their three children. |
| Rabbi Hara Person
Adjunct Rabbi
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A child of our congregation, Rabbi Person was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1998. She attended Amherst College, where she graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and has an M.A. in Fine Arts from New York University/International Center of Photography. Rabbi Person is editor-in-chief of the CCAR Press. She recently published The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, where she formerly served as editor-in-chief of the URJ Press. She is the co-editor of That You May Live Long: Caring for Our Aging Parents, Caring for Ourselves and Stories of Heaven and Earth co-authored with her mother, Dr. Diane Person. Rabbi Person first taught at the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue from 1979-1981, and then again from 1988-1990. From 1990-1995, Rabbi Person was our Educator. She lives in Carroll Gardens with her husband, Yigal Rechtman, and their children.
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| Randi Jaffe
Executive Director
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Our Executive Director ensures the smooth running of all administrative matters of our congregation, managing the office and the building and working closely with the rest of the professional staff, the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees, and active committees of the congregation. Randi earned her B.A. in writing and literature at Barnard College, and M.A. in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She has more than twenty years’ experience in nonprofit management, and has been an active member of the Reform movement since her teenage years. Prior to joining the BHS staff, Randi was executive director of Ansche Chesed, a large Conservative congregation on the upper west side of Manhattan. She has also served as religious school coordinator for Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope, and as administrator of the Bronfman Center for Jewish student Life-Hillel at NYU.
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| Cantor Cheré Campbell
Educator
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Cantor Campbell’s work with children began when she was in college, spending her summers as a camp counselor with the Kennedy Child Study Center in Santa Monica. She holds a B.A. in psychology from Earlham College, in Richmond, Indiana, an M.A. in music from the University of California, San Diego, and a Master of Sacred Music, from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, where she was invested Cantor. Throughout cantorial school she taught children at several religious schools in New York, including Brooklyn Heights Synagogue. Cantor Campbell served as Cantor and Educator at Temple Shalom in Colorado Springs for three years, where she oversaw the Hebrew School, taught b’nei mitzvah and adult education classes, and sang with the Rocky Mountain Cantors Association and the Colorado Springs Symphony. Cantor Campbell returned to New York in 1996 to serve at The Village Temple, where she served as Educator. Lisa Samick
Preschool Director
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Lisa Samick graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Early Childhood and Elementary Education from George Washington University. After a year-long fellowship teaching for the Head Start Program in Boston, she moved to Israel where she worked as a nursery school teacher. Back in the United States, Lisa worked for Young Judaea as a Regional Director, then as National Director of Young Judaea’s University Department, where she served on the original advisory committee for the Birthright Israel program. Lisa was Director of the Preschool Summer Camp program at Park Avenue Synagogue from 2005 to 2008, and during the 2007-2008 school year she also served as Education Supervisor for their Early Childhood Center. As a doctoral student in NYU’s program in Education and Jewish Studies, Lisa is focusing on the processes and progress of Jewish Early Childhood programming as a portal to the Jewish community. This fall, the professional organization JECA (Jewish Early Childhood Association) announced the election of Lisa Samick to its new board of directors. Congratulations Lisa! Nancy Bach
Student Cantor
Nancy Bach, our new student cantor, is beginning her third year at the School of Sacred Music at Hebrew Union College (so if we are very lucky, we may get to keep her around for 3 years). Nancy loves the work of creating meaningful teaching and worship experiences and is thrilled to be joining us. On the bimah and through her love of teaching children and adults in the classroom, Nancy brings her voice and a sense of creativity which she hopes will always instill welcoming and connection with the teachings of Judaism, and help us reach both within as individuals and out to each other as a wider community. Prior to BHS, Nancy worked at The Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, Hebrew Tabernacle Congregation and Central Synagogue in Manhattan, and has served as Student Cantor at Congregation Children of Israel in Augusta, GA. She loves to run, do yoga, cook, ski and see as much theater as she can. Before beginning her Cantorial studies, Nancy worked in the fields of Musical Theater and Arts Marketing. Nancy grew up in Manhattan and received her B.A. from Brown University. |
| Diana Fersko
Rabbinic Intern
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After graduating with the highest academic honors from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Diana worked in the Adult Programs Department at the Manhattan Jewish Community Center, helping to plan Shabbat dinners, holiday celebrations, classes, lectures, and singles events for hundreds of unaffiliated Jews in New York. While in her first year of rabbinic school at Hebrew Union College, in Jerusalem, she was a volunteer English tutor in a battered women's shelter. Most recently, Diana served as student rabbi for Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, teaching and leading Tefilah for students of all ages. (She’ll be doing some of these things, and leading Chavurah, for us.) Diana has also pursued her active interest in pastoral care and counseling, completing Unit 1 of the Clinical Pastoral Care training at New York University Medical Center and interning at Dorot where she provided intensive individual pastoral care to the homebound elderly on a weekly basis. In her free time, Diana enjoys reading, running, puzzles, and spending time with her husband Seth. She is seeking rabbinic ordination in 2011. We look forward to making that journey with her.
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