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236 Kane Street / Brooklyn, NY 11231 / 718 875-1550

Kane Street’s Anniversary Honoree, Rabbi Samuel H. Weintraub

We are grateful to celebrate Kane Street’s 166th Anniversary at our Annual Celebration, by honoring Rabbi Samuel H. Weintraub, who retired in 2021 after 25 years of devoted service to our synagogue. Rabbi Weintraub was also honored in the 165th Anniversary Commemorative Journal.

Rabbi Samuel H. Weintraub

Kane Street Synagogue is a religious, cultural, social, and intellectual home for so many, thanks in large part to Rabbi Weintraub. Under his leadership, we challenged ourselves to “think big” and reached important milestones as a community.

Rabbi Weintraub labored to keep our Synagogue both accessible and challenging to people from all religious backgrounds, levels of Jewish observance, races, sexual orientations and economic brackets. Rabbi Weintraub has been crucial in establishing and innovating a wide range of programs at Kane Street, including weekday and Shabbat Hebrew School, Synaplex, Me’ah, and Open Beit Midrash. He has been a strong advocate for ritual inclusion of interfaith couples, LGBTQ+ Jews, and Jews with disabilities, and for our participation in the HIAS Welcome Campaign. He stewarded the Synagogue’s current revival of congregational singing by mentoring Joey Weisenberg’s leadership as Music Director and later initiating a Liturgical Director position, now held by Cantor Sarah Myerson.

To foster a multi-faceted relationship with Israel, Rabbi Weintraub led a Synagogue trip to Israel, established Israel 360 (a forum focused on important aspects of Israeli politics and cultures), and promoted Synagogue support for religious pluralism and Jewish-Arab co-existence in Israel. Passionate about the relevance of Jewish history, ethics and texts to contemporary issues, he has spearheaded Synagogue social justice efforts to combat hunger, poverty, racism and genocide and to welcome refugees, support victims of terror, and maintain ongoing dialogue with the local Muslim community. Over his tenure at Kane Street, he has been active in social justice organizations including T’ruah: Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, HIAS, New Israel Fund, New Sanctuary Coalition, Poor People’s Campaign, and Mazon.

Rabbi Weintraub received his B.A. from Haverford College and his Rabbinic Ordination and Master’s of Hebrew Literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary. He has Honorary Doctorates in Divinity from the Jewish Theological Seminary and from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Before coming to Kane Street, he served as a Rabbi in synagogues in White Plains, Toronto, and Danbury, CT as well as Program Director at MIT Hillel and Interfaith Affairs Fellow at the American Jewish Committee.

His articles have appeared in publications of the Jewish Theological Seminary, American Jewish Committee and the Coalition for the Environment and Jewish Life, as well as in Conservative Judaism, The Reconstructionist and The Canadian Jewish News. In addition, many of his written drashot —known as L’fi Dati (“As I See It”)—are now archived on the Kane Street Synagogue website. Rabbi Weintraub is now working on two books, one theological and one political, incorporating his teachings from his years at Kane Street Synagogue, where he is now Rabbi Emeritus.

Rabbi Weintraub is the proud father of Gabriel and Daniel Weintraub.

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