Our Clergy
Temple Beth El of City Island has an interim rabbi for 2023-2024 and will be searching for a permanent rabbi/cantor/spiritual leader after the High Holidays 5784. Please be in touch if you wish to apply for the position.
Interim Rabbi David E. Levy says: My route to becoming a Rabbi was certainly not a straight line! My first step was on Masada at 5:30 am on my 2001 Birthright Israel trip. As I watched the sun rise out of the Dead Sea, I felt connected to the Jewish people in a way I never had before. That moment catalyzed a trajectory that culminated three years later in a call to HUC-JIR from my cubicle at GE. In between those two moments, yes I got my Bachelors degree in Information Systems, but more importantly I fell in love with the wisdom of the Jewish tradition, and helping individual Jews and Jewish communities thrive. That passion has only grown over these past twenty years as I continue to invest in my own learning and growth, and create opportunities for communities and individuals to do the same. I live in Westchester, NY with my wife Kate, our three sons, Benji, Micah, and Ezra and our dog Gizmo.
Our former Rabbi David Markus is North America’s only pulpit rabbi also to hold a full-time oath of office, weaving spiritual and secular while staying fully faithful to both. One of only two rabbis whom New York Jewish Week named among Jewish life’s “36 to Watch” for 2022, Rabbi David is a prominent liturgist, musician, educator and pathfinder for a vibrantly modern Jewish life with depth of mind, heart and soul. Rabbi David nourishes his pulpit service with innovation from Bayit: Building Jewish (a trans-denominational innovation incubator whose board he chairs), as rabbinics faculty of the Academy for Jewish Religion (New York’s pluralist accredited seminary), and his practice as spiritual director for seekers of all faiths. Rabbi David began at TBE as a student intern and stayed on for 13 years, until July 2023. We wish him all the best.
Rabbi Emerita Shohama Wiener was the first female president of any Jewish seminary in history, the Academy for Jewish Religion in New York, and also served for 15 years as Rosh Hashpa’ah (Head of Spiritual Direction) and member of the Vaad (Academic Council) for the ALEPH Ordination Programs. Under Rabbi Shohama, Temple Beth El became a “training synagogue” for the renewal of Judaism. Rabbi Shohama became Rabbi Emerita in 2019 and returns to TBE for Shabbat by the Sea and the High Holy Days. She currently lives in Florida.