Our Clergy

Rabbi Samuel Barth (R’ Sami) believes deeply in congregational life as a core center where Jewish souls, hearts, and minds are connected–connected with each other and with God.  He recalls the earliest period in the development of Kolot Chayeinu, having spent many Shabbat meals and shared programs with Rabbi Emerita Ellen Lippmann.  Seeing Kolot’s growth in numbers and depth of community has been a delight over the years. The opportunity to support Kolot in this coming transitional year is an honor and a joy.

In recent years, R’ Sami has held a number of Interim (Transitional) Rabbi positions, working with communities in Needham, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Madison, among others.  He also served as Settled Rabbi for congregations in Austin, TX and Gloucester, MA, as well as much closer to home at the Park Slope Jewish Center.

Off of the bima, he has served as a dean and professor of liturgy at the Jewish Theological Seminary.  While at JTS, Rabbi Sami held a Jim Joseph Faculty Fellowship in Technology and Learning, developing expertise in the use of diverse electronic media to support Jewish study.  He has also taught at the pluralistic Academy for Jewish Religion (AJR) and within the ALEPH (Jewish Renewal) Ordination Program, teaching and mentoring a new generation of rabbis and cantors.  Students have appreciated his patience and imaginative approach to teaching, making extensive use of case-studies, traditional havruta, and modern technology.  Engagement with the wider community, and especially with interfaith work, has been a core part of his work since his student years.

His teachings and Divrei Torah are rooted in modern scholarship and the subversive vision of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.  R’ Sami is known for a calm presence, a deep commitment to pastoral care, and for developing creative programs that involve existing members and also engage new participants. 

He was educated in the UK, with an undergraduate major in mathematical physics and advanced studies in philosophy and comparative religion.  Following Ordination from the Leo Baeck College in London, where his dissertation was on “Kavanah in Halakhic Sources,” he pursued graduate study in Talmud and Liturgy.  

R’ Sami and his wife Karen, z”l (who died from cancer last year), are the parents of Yishai (pursuing a PhD at Cambridge) and Miriam. He is fond of music, theater and martial arts, enjoying white water kayaking and Scottish music, a love inherited from his mother who was born in Edinburgh.  His passionate concern about access and inclusion for all is informed by experiences with Yishai’s cerebral palsy, and with helping many families negotiate barriers and obstacles. 

More from Interim Rabbi Samuel Barth

Recordings of podcast commentary to “Korach” recorded while on JTS Faculty

Some responses to general Jewish questions while a panelist for Jewish Values Online (JVO)

These are links to several essays on prayer written while serving as a professor in the field of liturgy at JTS:

Yearning: Poetry and Prayer

The Song of Songs: Lovers Absent and Present

Melody or Discord

On Doubt and Prayer

Cantor Lisa B. Segal is a founding member of Kolot, where she has served as co-and senior clergy for over 19 years. Cantor Segal was ordained in 2011 by the Academy for Jewish Religion (AJR) and served as their Cantorial Director for two years (2012-14). With her unique voice and energy, Lisa leads Shabbat, holiday, and High Holy Day services and observances. In addition, she teaches, creates and leads all ranges of life cycle events to enhance Kolot members’ spiritual lives. She composes music, leads community events and regularly performs in concert, on Facebook, and on bimahs around the country.

Cantor Segal collaborates regularly with local Brooklyn and New York City Cantors and musicians in Jewish communal observances and holidays. During the first six months of the Pandemic she created and hosted a twice-weekly Facebook live session of song, meditation and reflections/Torah. Her original composition, Ratzo VaShov/Ebb and Flow, was featured at the opening of the 2021 ACC Convention, and she was commissioned to write a piece for T’ruah’s 2021 Gala, entitled Na’aseh V’Nishma, along with HUC-JIR Cantorial Student Ze’evi (Berman) Levtov. Notable performances include D’var Shirah – Music Meets Text at the Red Sea at the Eldridge Street Synagogue, a benefit she created and produced for the Academy for Jewish Religion, featuring spoken word artists and Jewish musicians in improvisation (music directed by Frank London of the Klezmatics), and Zero Church; the Prayer Project where she sang with The Roches at St. Ann’s Warehouse.

Cantor Segal has appeared in many concerts she created for Kolot - “Off the Bimah!” - with a range of notable and innovative Jewish musicians including Joey Weisenberg, Marty Ehrlich, Marc Ribot, Alicia Jo Rabins, Roy Nathanson, Alicia Svigals, and others, and has performed with numerous cantors and choirs throughout the New York metropolitan area and beyond.

She is an Associate Member of the ACC (American Conference of Cantors), an active alumni of AJR and Hevraya, the Institute for Jewish Spirituality’s Mindfulness meditation clergy cohort, and a longtime member of the Women Cantors Network. Lisa and her husband, writer and maggid Arthur “Ari” Strimling, live in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Ellen Lippmann is the founder of Kolot Chayeinu. Rabbi Lippmann is the former East Coast Director of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, and former director of the Jewish Women's Program at the New 14th Street Y in Manhattan.   

Rabbi Lippmann was Co-chair and served on the board of T’ruah: the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights for 18 years.  She served as the first social justice chair for the Women’s Rabbinic Network.  She was the founder of the Soup Kitchen at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, and co-founder of the 15-year Children of Abraham Peace Walk: Jews, Christians and Muslims Walking Together in Brooklyn in Peace.  She worked with NYCC and others on the Fight for $15, and with JFREJ on the early fight in NY State for the rights of domestic workers.  Before retiring, she helped establish the system of working groups at Kolot Chayeinu to ensure broader embrace and a path to activism on racism, Israel and Palestine, and the rights of queer and trans people. 

Currently she sits on the boards of JFREJ and Integrate NYC, and mentors rabbis and activists through CLI and Taproot, and is founder and former co-chair of CAMMEERR, where we gather as multiracial and cross-faith leaders to nourish relationships and to start to build a political and spiritual framework to interrupt and transform stuck and harmful dynamics that attempt to divide our communities from each other.

Rabbi Lippmann was ordained in 1991 by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and also received there the degree of Master of Hebrew Letters. She holds a BA in English Language and Literature from Boston University and an MS in Library Science from Simmons College. Rabbi Lippmann and her wife are long-time Brooklyn residents and believe to be absolutely true what a Kolot Chayeinu member once said in jest: "IT DON'T GET ANY BETTER THAN BROOKLYN!"