Our Spiritual Leadership

Rabbi Roly Matalon

José Rolando Matalon, B’nai Jeshurun’s Senior Rabbi and Rosh Kehillah (Head of the Community), was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and was educated in Buenos Aires, Montreal, Jerusalem, and New York City. After his ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1986, Rabbi Matalon came to BJ to share the pulpit with his mentor, Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer. They worked together to revitalize the congregation and turn its focus to prayer, learning, service, social justice, and interfaith cooperation. After Rabbi Meyer’s death in 1993, Rabbi Matalon became BJ’s spiritual leader. He was joined by Rabbi Marcelo Bronstein in 1995 and by Rabbi Felicia Sol in 2001. With the support of Rabbi Rebecca Weintraub and Hazzan Ari Priven, Rabbis Matalon and Sol now lead a vibrant, diverse community of 1,950 households. Rabbi Matalon’s visionary leadership has had a profound impact on the revitalization of Jewish synagogue life in the US and in Israel, his involvement in the New York, Jewish, and Israeli communities is broad and deep. He has received awards from the New York Board of Rabbis, the Jewish Peace Fellowship, the New Israel Fund, and T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. Rabbi Matalon is a founding co-director of Piyut North America (now Global Piyut Music), a partnership between B’nai Jeshurun and Invitation to Piyut in Israel, which is dedicated to the dissemination of liturgical music from Jewish communities around the world. A student of Arabic and Turkish music, Rabbi Matalon plays the oud (Arabic lute). Rabbi Matalon and his wife have two daughters and two grandsons.

Rabbi Felicia Sol

Rabbi Sol has served as a rabbi at BJ since 2001, becoming the first woman to serve as a rabbi in the congregation’s almost 200-year history. In June 2021, she was appointed as a senior rabbi of the congregation, also a first in the congregation’s history. Rabbi Sol joined BJ as Family and Youth Director while in rabbinical school, and after ordination in 1999 served as a BJ Rabbinic Fellow for two years. During this time, she created Pnei Shabbat, BJ’s family prayer book, and edited Zimrat Yah: Prayers and Songs for Shabbat and Festivals. After two years under the mentorship of Rabbis J. Rolando Matalon and Marcelo Bronstein, Rabbi Sol joined her teachers in their rabbinic partnership. During her 25 year tenure as a rabbi at BJ, Rabbi Sol has overseen the programmatic vision for the community for members of every age: transforming the teen program; creating the beloved Women’s retreat; leading the community’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts; and envisioning the communal Back Home Shabbaton. Mentoring over 20 BJ Rabbinic fellows in and beyond their time at BJ is one of the great privileges of her rabbinate. Her service to the Jewish community goes beyond BJ: serving on the board of Bend the Arc for 15 years, and as a member of the rabbinic council of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice. She is a graduate of the Clergy Leadership of the Institute of Jewish Spirituality, and is currently in the 8th cohort of the Rabbinic Leadership Initiative of the Shalom Hartman Institute. Rabbi Sol was featured in the documentary All of the Above: Single, Clergy, Mother and wrote an essay in the book Faithfully Feminist: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Feminists on Why We Stay. She is also featured in Identity/Crisis, a podcast of the Shalom Hartman Institute. Rabbi Sol earned a BA in Developmental Psychology and Education from Tufts University, a Masters in Jewish Education from the Rhea Hirsch School of Education of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, her Masters of Hebrew Letters (1996) and rabbinic ordination (1999) also from HUC-JIR. She received her Doctor in Divinity from HUC-JIR for 25 years in the rabbinate. Raised in Connecticut, Rabbi Sol has a son and a daughter and lives on the Upper West Side.

Rabbi Rebecca Weintraub

Rabbi Rebecca Weintraub completed her studies at the Hebrew College Rabbinical School in Boston, where she was ordained in June 2020. She joined B'nai Jeshurun's spiritual leadership in July 2020. She was previously the rabbinic intern at Temple Emunah in Lexington, MA, and Beth El Synagogue Center in New Rochelle, NY.

Hazzan Ari Priven