The new rabbi at Kol Tzedek, Rabbi Ari Lev Fornari (Photo courtesy of Kol Tzedek.)

Kol Tzedek, the reconstructionist synagogue based at the Calvary Center for Culture and Community on Baltimore Avenue, has a new rabbi, Rabbi Ari Lev Fornari, and a new Torah school director, Rabbi Michelle Greenfield. Their first services will be this Saturday, Aug. 6.

A New York native, Fornari has served as director of the Boston-area Jewish Education Program and as a part-time prison chaplain. He was ordained from the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College. As a student, he spent two years working at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah (CBST) in New York, teaching, preaching, and providing pastoral care for congregants.

The synagogue’s search committee chair, Rob Auritt, told the Jewish Exponent that Fornari, who is transgender, has a “singular ability to engage people of all levels of Jewish experience and previous participation in organized Judaism, people of all sexual orientations and gender expressions, and those committed to anti-racism and to a multiracial Jewish civilization.”

Fornari replaces Kol Tzedek’s founding rabbi, Lauren Grabelle Hermann, who left for a position at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism in New York. 

Kol Tzedek also has a new Torah School director. Rabbi Michelle Greenfield is a 2012 graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and has worked as an educator in a variety of settings, including classrooms, synagogues, camps, coffee shops, and nursing homes.  Michelle previously served as the Shul School director at Kehilat HaNahar in New Hope.

Rabbi Ari Lev will be leading this Saturday’s service at 10 a.m., and Rabbi Michelle will be leading an interactive musical children’s service for ages 5 and up that starts at 11 a.m.

Kol Tzedek asked us to remind everyone that they always welcome religious Jews, secular Jews, and non-Jews who are interested in learning more, and particularly extends a hand to interfaith families, Jews of color, and LGBTQ visitors.