Senior Rabbi

SENIOR RABBI | Brian Schuldenfrei

Rabbi Brian Schuldenfrei is excited to join Adat Ari El as our 4th Senior Rabbi. He values our synagogue’s commitment to balance both tradition and experimentation.  This all takes a lot of love and dedication from the professional and lay leadership, for which Rabbi Schuldenfrei is tremendously grateful.  

Rabbi Schuldenfrei can most often be found roaming our campus with a hot cup of coffee in hand, playing with the preschoolers in the yard, or taste testing junk-food with our teenagers in the youth lounge.  

Prior to coming to Adat Ari El, Rabbi Schuldenfrei served as a Senior Rabbi in Palos Verdes, CA and Miami, FL. He has also served as Associate Rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. 

Rabbi Schuldenfrei’s flair for creative programming and outreach has received international coverage in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Jewish Daily Forward, The Jewish Journal, and numerous blogs. His essay on Conservative Judaism was published in The Encyclopedia of Religious and Spiritual Development.
 
Rabbi Schuldenfrei takes an active role in the larger community. Most recently, he completed a term as Chair of the Food Justice Working Group of the Rabbinical Assembly.  Rabbi Schuldenfrei also sat on the Executive Committee of the Los Angeles Board of Rabbis, the Rabbinical Assembly’s Resolutions Committee, the Rabbinic Cabinet of the Masorti Foundation for Conservative Judaism, the United Jewish Community’s Young Leadership Cabinet, and the Executive Board of the Miami Rabbinic Association.
 
Rabbi Schuldenfrei was a distinguished student at his school of ordination, The Jewish Theological Seminary. He received his B.A. with honors from Washington University in St. Louis. While studying for ordination, among other positions, Rabbi Schuldenfrei served as the rabbinic intern for the New York Board of Rabbis Center for Spiritual Care, Beit Tshuvah, a Jewish recovery center in Los Angeles, and CLAL – The National Center for Learning and Leadership. 

Rabbi Schuldenfrei is married to Rabbi Deborah Schuldenfrei, and a father of three boys. As an unwavering optimist, Rabbi Schuldenfrei firmly believes that the New York Mets will win the World Series (well, maybe one day).

Click Here to connect with Rabbi Schuldenfrei.