Welcoming Our New Clergy
Jul 01 , 2021/Category

We are pleased to welcome Assistant Rabbi Deborah Goldberg and Assistant Cantor Stefano Iacono, new members of our clergy team as of today.

There will be many opportunities for you to meet them over the summer, including our Outdoor Shabbat Pre-Neg on Friday, July 9 at 4:30 pm. For all of our upcoming in-person events click here.

Deborah Goldberg (she/her), ordained from Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, OH in May 2021, is our new Assistant Rabbi. She comes to us having served as Rabbinic Intern at Congregation Beth Tikvah in Columbus, OH, where she developed interfaith and adult education programming. She is “passionate about building inclusive Jewish communities where everyone has access to our sacred texts and traditions.” 

In her fourth year at HUC-JIR, she was honored with the Rabbi Morris H. Youngerman Memorial Prize for Best Sermon and while a student, she was a Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati Fellow at Isaac M. Wise Temple working on family engagement and teen social justice programs. Deborah was an Eisendrath Legislative Assistant at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington, DC and the Teen Programs Coordinator at the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs in Chicago where she grew up. We welcome Rabbi Goldberg to New York City with her recently adopted beagle, Kelly. As a student chaplain in hospitals and senior residences, she learned how a pastoral presence can be instrumental in creating sacred relationships. Something her new congregation will no doubt gravitate towards. 

Stefano Iacono (he/him), our new Assistant Cantor, was ordained as Cantor from HUC-JIR’s Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music in New York City in May 2021. Cantor Iacono (pronounced ya-ko-no) brings his deep sense of Jewish spirituality to the CRS community. His goal, as he puts it: “To enhance prayer and foster learning. To share in celebration and mourning. To connect with one another as we seek connection with God. To make distance feel close.”

For the past four years, Stefano served as Student Cantor of Congregation Gates of Heaven in Schenectady, NY, leading services and teaching in their religious school. An alumnus of the Weitzman-JDC-HUC-JIR Fellowship for Global Jewish Leaders, he traveled to India in 2019 where he found a centuries-long legacy of Jewish community and thought anew about global Jewish peoplehood. Cantor Iacono composes Hebrew texts to various musical genres and traditions, his way of celebrating the diversity of Jewish expression in worship and ritual. A native of San Antonio, Stefano lives in Brooklyn with his husband, Alex and their conure, Gandhi.