| Temple Sinai
Our Rabbi
Rabbi Malcolm Cohen and Family
With huge excitement, Rabbi Malcolm Cohen has joined the team at Temple Sinai. He and his distinctive London accent come as a package from the UK, along with his wife Sarah, a Jewish Studies educator, and his infant son Elijah. Rabbi Cohen brings to his new community a wide breadth of experience and skills. Before embarking on Rabbinic life, he worked extensively on housing projects for underprivileged young people in Britain. His training for ordination took him to Leo Baeck College in London, and also to the New York campus of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He has served Beth Israel Congregation in Florence, South Carolina (working very successfully within a small congregation, and along the way making some life-long friendships). More recently he has worked with the powerhouse congregations of the UK's Movement for Reform Judaism, firstly as a key leader of young people at Edgware & District Reform Synagogue (his 'home' community, and one of the largest congregations in Europe), later as an intern at North Western Reform Synagogue (the leading Reform Congregation in the Jewish heartland of North London), and lastly as one of three full-time Rabbis at West London Synagogue. WLS is the flagship Congregation of the Reform movement in the UK, with a membership of 1700 families, it is the oldest established Progressive Jewish community in the UK, and is a magnet for Jewish students, visitors, business people from all over the world (notably from the US) when they pass through London. Rabbi Cohen was able to draw on all of this experience, when by invitation he joined the Board of the Movement for Reform Judaism in the UK, bringing a fresh perspective to this central decision-making body. He has also sat on the Reform Movement's Beth Din on numerous occasions. Rabbi Cohen's approach emphasizes the very best that Reform Judaism has to offer. He works with the Synagogue team, and lay leaders, to develop key initiatives to bring into the fold those who have not yet found their place in the community. He very successfully starts up projects to reach out to young people, and offers them meaningful ways to express their Jewishness. He enriches his congregation with humor, insight, and challenge, to add a richness and diversity to prayer and to community activity. He has an infectious passion for texts and for Jewish tradition, but tempers this with the warmth and the modernity of present-day Progressive Judaism. He acts as an articulate and engaging advocate for his Congregation and for Progressive Judaism. Temple Sinai and the Las Vegas Jewish community welcome Rabbi Cohen, Sarah, and Elijah with joy, love, and appreciation. |
