Rabbis

Rabbi Susan Talve

Rabbi Susan Talve is the founding rabbi of Central Reform Congregation, the only Jewish congregation 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. She received her Doctor of Divinity degree in 2006.

In 1992, the Jewish Federation of St. Louis awarded her its 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. She has received numerous awards for her presence in the African American and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) communities.

Strongly committed to Tikkun Olam - healing the world - 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 is also on the Board of CHIPS, Community-Health-In-Partnership, a free health clinic for the uninsured. Rabbi Talve helped start 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. 

Click here to read some of Rabbi Talve's writings.

 

Rabbi Randy Fleisher

Rabbi Randy Fleisher was born in the Chicago area and attended the University of Wisconsin for his undergraduate studies. In the years before he entered rabbinical school, Rabbi Fleisher 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, Rabbi Fleisher directed the seminary's soup kitchen and served as the student rabbi in Hickory, North Carolina.

Ordained in 2000, Rabbi Fleisher 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 congregation. Named Associate Rabbi in 2004, Rabbi Fleisher works alongside one of his rabbinic mentors, CRC’s founding rabbi, Susan Talve.

He is quite involved in the greater community, most notably with the Holy Ground Collaborative, a neighborhood-based interfaith and multi-racial collectives working for urban justice and renewal. Rabbi Fleisher is the past chairperson of the Jewish Environmental Initiative and serves as the Vice-Chair to Jews United for Justice, where he organizes the annual Heschel/King event. Rabbi Fleisher 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, the Jewish Fund For Human Needs and Cultural Leadership. He also sits on the steering committee of the ‘Go to Health! Ambulatory Care’ program. In 2005, Rabbi Fleisher was recognized by the Coro Leadership Center with an ‘Emerging Leader’ award.

Rabbi Fleisher, his wife 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 Edwin Harris, Ph.D.

Rabbi Ed Harris has been involved with Central Reform Congregation since its inception. In 1984 Rabbi Harris and his wife Deborah, together with the vision and inspiration of 29 other families, founded Central Reform Congregation. As CRC’s second president, Rabbi Harris 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.

Rabbi Harris 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 Rabbi Harris' responsibilities. 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.

Rabbi Harris 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. Rabbi Harris is Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Saint Louis University Medical School, and serves on the Ethics Committee for the Alliance for Jewish Renewal.

Rabbi Harris and his wife Deborah have three children: Nick (married to Emily), Jacob (married to Hilary), and Eliana.

Click here to read some of Rabbi Harris' writings.