CRC RABBIS
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Rabbi Susan Talve is the founding rabbi of Central Reform Congre-gation, the only Jewish congrega-tion in the City of St. Louis. She performs life cycle events, leads worship services for the seven hundred fifty plus households that comprise the congregation, and is actively involved in the teaching of young and adult members. She also teaches courses on Jewish life and thought in both the Jewish and non-Jewish community.
A past president of the St. Louis Rabbinical Association, Rabbi Talve was ordained by Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati in 1981, where she earned a Master’s Degree in Hebrew Letters. She was honored with the college’s Stephen Levinson Award for Community Service after founding the Jewish Early Learning Cooperative, Ohio’s first licensed infant childcare program in the workplace.
In 1992, the Jewish Federation of St. Louis awarded her their first Woman of Valor award. In May 1993, she was given the Trumpet of Justice Award by the Institute of Peace and Justice. Rabbi Talve received the Brotherhood and Sisterhood Award of the National Conference of Community and Justice for the year 2000 and was a 2003 Woman of Achievement.
Strongly committed to Tikkun Olam -- healing the world -- she is a member of numerous local organizations, including Faith Aloud (formerly the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice) and Missouri Health Care for All. Rabbi Talve is the Vice President of the Board of Dollar-Help, Inc., and she serves on the Community Advisory Committee of the Regional Health Commission. In 2004, she helped found CHIPS@CRC, a monthly health screening and education clinic for the under- and uninsured, in coalition with the CHIPS Clinic. Rabbi Talve helped start and continues to lead a group at St. Louis Children’s Hospital for families of children with congenital heart defects and serves on the Board of the Children's Hospital Foundation.
Rabbi Talve has led her congregation in promoting inclusivity by developing ongoing relationships with African-American and Muslim congregations, and by fostering civil liberties for the LGBT community. She served as the Vice-Chair of Missourians for Freedom and Justice, an organization that supported the LGBT community and is an active member of the St. Louis Interfaith Dialogue Group.
She and husband, Rabbi James Stone Goodman of Neve Shalom Congregation, have three children.
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Rabbi Randy Fleisher was born in the Chicago area and attended the University of Wisconsin for his un-dergraduate studies. In the years before he entered rabbinical school, Randy worked for a citizen's action group in Washington, D.C., taught environmental education to inner-city children in Connecticut, and helped to run a summer camp in Minnesota. At Hebrew-Union College in New York City, Randy directed the seminary's soup kitchen and served as the student rabbi in Hickory, North Carolina.
Ordained in 2000, Randy came to St. Louis to be the Assistant Rabbi at Central Reform Congregation where he takes on a variety of roles in that inclusive and spiritual urban congrega-tion. Named Associate Rabbi in 2004, Randy works alongside one of his rabbinic mentors, CRC’s founding rabbi, Susan Talve.
He is quite involved in the greater community, most notably with Metropolitan Congregations United and the Holy Ground Collaborative, two interfaith and multi-racial collectives work-ing for urban justice and renewal. Rabbi Fleisher was also recently selected to be the chairperson of the Jewish Environ-mental Initiative and serves as the Vice-Chair to Jews United for Justice. Randy and his wife Amy were honored in 2004 to co-chair the Jewish Federation’s annual ‘Super Sunday’ fund and awareness raising event. He is on the rabbinic advisory council for Ayecha, a group that provides support for Jews of Color, and is the rabbinic advisor for Beth Olam, a new Jewish cemetery in St. Louis. He serves on the boards of directors of the St. Louis Chapter of the Urban League, Congregations Allied for Community Improvement (CACI), the Jewish Fund For Human Needs and Lift For Life, a charter school serving inner-city children in St. Louis. He also sits on the steering com-mittee of the ‘Go to Health! Ambuslatory Care’ program. In 2005, Rabbi Fleisher was recognized by the Coro Leadership Center with an ‘Emerging Leader’ award.
Randy, Amy, and their two children (Zoey Sky and Gabriel Shine) live in University City.
Click here to read some of Rabbi Fleisher's writings.
Rabbi Ed Harris has been involved with Central Reform Congregation since its inception. In 1984 Ed and his wife Deborah, together with the vision and inspiration of 29 other families, founded Central Reform Congregation. As CRC’s second president, Ed helped to guide the congregation in its early years and has served the congregation since that time. In the role of Hazzan, he provided liturgical leadership and Jewish music to this growing community, a position he holds to this day.
Ed earned a Ph.D. from Washington University in 1976, and has worked as a psychologist in private practice for over 30 years. He offers individual, group, and couples psychotherapy, trains and supervises therapists, and consults with family businesses.
As Central Reform Congregation grew, so did Ed’s respon-sibilities. He continued to lead services, teach, and offer spiritual counseling to CRC members and, through this work, saw the healing potential of integrating the wisdom of Judaism with the practice of contemporary psychology. This led him to formal Jewish study.
Ed was ordained as a Rabbinic Pastor through ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal in 2006, and continued his studies toward full rabbinic smicha (ordination) which he received in 2008 from Rabbis Susan Talve and Randy Fleisher of Central Reform Congregation and Rabbi James Goodman of Congregation Neve Shalom.
Rabbi Harris leads services and conducts life-cycle events, leads a monthly grief support group, teaches Torah study and the 9th grade “Politics and Peacemaking” class, and also teaches courses and workshops in CRC’s adult education program. His articles, “God, Buber, and the Practice of Gestalt Therapy” and “Working with Forgiveness in Gestalt Therapy” reflect his ongoing interest in the integration of psychotherapy and Jewish spiritual practices. Ed is Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Saint Louis University Medical School, and serves on the Ethics Committee for the Alliance for Jewish Renewal.
Ed and Deborah have three children: Nick (married to Emily), Jacob (engaged to Hilary), and Eliana.
Click here to read some of Rabbi Harris' writings.
