About Me

Samantha grew up in St. Louis, MO, where she attended Congregation Shaare Emeth. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Educational Studies and a Minor in Mathematics from Webster University in St. Louis, MO.

Samantha grew up attending URJ Goldman Union Camp Institute (GUCI) in Zionsville, IN, and worked there as a Counselor and Songleader for three summers and on Leadership Staff for two. The summer before rabbinical school, Samantha staffed a NFTY in Israel trip through Prague, Poland, and Israel. She was an active member in her Jewish community growing up, teaching religious school and playing guitar at services through high school and college. After college, Samantha spent two years working at Saul Mirowitz Jewish Community School, a pluralistic Jewish day school in St. Louis, MO. For several years, Samantha traveled monthly to help lead services at Temple Shalom in Louisville, KY.

In her time in LA, Samantha has served as a Rabbinic Intern at Congregation Or Ami in Calabasas. She was the Student Rabbi at Temple Beth Israel in Redding, CA. She served in a summer Pastoral Internship at Los Angeles Jewish Health, a local Jewish nursing home. She also taught Religious School at Temple Israel of Hollywood and Temple Judea in Tarzana. As an HUC student, Samantha served as Student Body President and Treasurer of HaKesher, the Los Angeles campus’s student government.

Samantha enjoys playing guitar, listening to audiobooks, crocheting, and learning new skills like juggling.

The Hebrew for “to pay attention” is lasim lev. Literally, that translates as “to put one’s heart” on something. Lasim lev, to pay attention with my whole heart is the core of what I want my rabbinate to be. My whole heart is with the people who come together to sing, pray, support each other, and build community. My whole heart is in paying attention to the world around me and doing what I can to build the world I want to see. My whole heart is in making our rich tradition relevant and meaningful to our people today. My attention is expansive, and I find meaning in understanding how everything connects and comes together.

From my place on the bima, I have the best view in the house. I get to look around at my community and see each individual person. I take a moment to appreciate the miracle that in this age of individualism, these people have chosen to come together to be a part of something bigger than themselves. In these moments when I truly pay attention, I am filled with a sense of connection and gratitude for the work I get to do and it helps me to get into the headspace of prayer. Prayer is an important part of my connection to Judaism and my community. I think of prayer as a mindfulness practice done individually while side by side with others. Each person has their own experience of conversation with themselves, our tradition, and the divine, while also participating in the prayer of the community. Prayer is paying attention to how we are all connected as we all strive to find meaning.

Social justice work is an essential part of my Judaism. As a Jewish leader, I feel like it is my responsibility to use my position and privilege, to pay attention to the world around me, to affect change, and to take action to bring more dignity to more people. Recently, I went to a Jewish community event where we learned about pilot programs for guaranteed basic income. As I listened to testimonies of how a seemingly small amount of money each month helped people to feel so much more secure in their financial situations, I started to think about my own financial situation. As a student living in Los Angeles, I did not make enough money to cover all of my basic expenses. Without the privilege of help from my family, I could feel a similar insecurity to the people speaking. Whether or not I can find a personal connection to each situation, it is important to me that people are able to live their lives with dignity.

When I read a Jewish text, my first instinct is to start strategizing about how I could share it. I think of it almost as a puzzle. How can I find meaning in these old concepts, ideas, and stories, and help them to become newly relevant to myself and my contemporaries? I, like rabbis and commentators before me, look for patterns within and between texts for clues about what they may mean. I utilize my understanding of human nature and interactions to read depth into characters that appear two dimensional. As much as I love to analyze a text, my favorite part of studying is hearing how others interpret that text and learning from a conversation we can create together. The magic of Torah study is the way we still connect with each other, after thousands of years, over the same words and stories. I love to pay attention to how our connection to a text facilitates our connection to one another.

Prayer, social justice work, and teaching Torah are integral parts of my Judaism and my Jewish leadership. Each of these parts of me can be boiled down to connection and paying attention. In my work as a Jewish leader, I will facilitate connection in anything I do and I will pay attention with my whole heart. I look forward to always learning more through my observations and my connections with the people around me.