Meet Our Team

With his extensive experience of World wisdom traditions, Rabbi David brings a unique depth and breadth of understanding to his rabbinic work. He is deeply committed to comparative religious studies and to integrating into Judaism practices which consistently prove effective in opening a connection with the Divine.

Email: david@romemu.org

Rabbi Dianne Cohler-Esses is an educator, scholar, and rabbinic leader whose work brings together rigorous Jewish learning, spiritual exploration, and a deep commitment to the diversity of Jewish life. She was the first woman from the Syrian Jewish community to be ordained as a rabbi, receiving ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1995. During her years at JTS, she was awarded several fellowships and a prize for academic excellence. In recognition of her contributions to Jewish education and leadership, she was named one of the fifty top rabbis by The Washington Post online in 2007, inducted into the Brooklyn Jewish Hall of Fame in 2019, and received the prestigious Covenant Award for Exceptional Jewish Educators in 2025.

Over the course of almost three decades, Rabbi Dianne has served as an educator, scholar-in-residence, teacher, and administrator for a wide range of Jewish organizations, including CLAL, the Bronfman Youth Fellowships, The Curriculum Initiative, and UJA-Federation of New York. At Romemu she serves as Rabbi and Director of Lifelong Learning at Romemu, where she leads a vibrant program of adult Jewish learning. Her teaching spans Torah, Jewish thought, spirituality, literature, and the arts, and she has long been particularly interested in the intersections of Jewish tradition with questions of identity, family life, ethnicity, disability, and the lived experience of Jewish communities. She also teaches and speaks regularly in a variety of communal and educational settings.

Rabbi Dianne is known for bringing intellectual depth, textual rigor, warmth, and openness to her teaching and writing. Whether exploring classical Jewish texts or engaging contemporary questions, she seeks to make Torah a living conversation—one that invites serious study, spiritual reflection, and honest engagement with the complexities of modern life. She lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with her husband, Larry, a journalist, and is the mother of three children.

Hazzan Shimon Smith has served as Romemu’s Music Director and Director of Youth and Family since 2023. Working alongside Rabbi David Ingber and Romemu’s clergy team, Shimon helps carry forward Romemu’s musical legacy while continually renewing its sound. He leads and shapes Romemu’s spiritually vibrant prayer experiences, including Shabbat and holiday services, special musical Kabbalat Shabbat gatherings, community music jams, and the revived Romemu Community Band. His work brings together traditional Jewish prayer, contemporary Jewish and Israeli music, original composition, and the distinctive participatory spirit of Romemu.

Shimon also directs Romemu’s growing Youth and Family community. He oversees Seekers Holistic Hebrew School and has developed expanded opportunities for children, teens, and their families through Sha’Baby, Family Shabbat, youth and teen services, holiday experiences, and musical prayer. At the heart of his work is a commitment to creating Jewish experiences that are joyful, emotionally honest, welcoming, and deeply rooted in tradition.

Raised in Israel, Shimon studied at the Rimon School of Music and Jazz and holds a bachelor’s degree in Jewish Studies and History. Before joining Romemu, he spent 13 years as the cantorial soloist and head of the b’nai mitzvah program at Beit Daniel in Tel Aviv. A longtime leader in Israel’s pluralistic Jewish movement, he has brought music to services, concerts, rallies, and gatherings supporting religious freedom and egalitarian Judaism. Shimon is a full member of the Cantors Assembly and a composer and recording artist whose music reaches listeners worldwide. He is also an accomplished Israeli voice actor, known as the Hebrew voice of characters including Scar, Thanos, and Hefty Smurf, and as one of the Hebrew voices of Waze.

Shimon lives on the Upper West Side with his wife, Rebecca, their five-year-old daughter, Lily, and their dog, Lucy.

Email: Shimon@romemu.org

Jeff has been passionately involved in Renewal Judaism for over 20 years, serving on the board of Aleph: The Alliance for Jewish Renewal, studying in the Aleph Seminary, and participating as a founding member of two Jewish Renewal congregations. Jeff has served on the Board of Romemu since our inception, and co-founded and chaired our Seekers Holistic Hebrew School, and our first Financial Development committee.  Jeff believes that Romemu is on its way to becoming a world class center for Renewal Judaism and plans to do whatever he can to help make that happen.

Jeff has 30 years of experience managing non-profit and for-profit organizations of all sizes. Most recently, he was the Director of Development of Young Judaea Global, the largest pluralist Zionist youth movement, and before that was a Development Director at UJA-Federation of New York, the world’s largest local philanthropy. Previously, while living in the San Francisco Bay Area for 15 years, he founded, grew, and sold the high-tech internet company, Netpulse. He has also worked at Intel, AT&T Bell Labs, and the Israeli telecom company, Telrad. A long time ago, Jeff got a BS in Electrical Engineering from Cornell, and a Masters from Stanford.

Jeff is madly in love with his wife, Shelley, and his three kids, Simon, Isabel, and Sinai.

Email: jeff@romemu.org

Eden Sidney Foster is passionate about Jewish practice and transformation, justice, and service. She comes from a creative background in filmmaking and theater, with years of experience in hospitality and the Jewish world. She feels privileged to bring her skills to bear to contribute to connection and evolution in the Romemu community.

Lauren Greenhall is thrilled to be part of the team at Romemu as the Program Manager! Originally from Seattle (but a New Yorker for 11 years now), she is excited to be combining her love of live-programming with her passion for the Jewish community. She has produced shows and festivals for Comedy Central, Caveat NYC, Vimeo, Little Island, and TimeOut NY with programming ranging from off-broadway plays and game-shows to improv, stand up, and absurdist sketch comedy. Greenhall is also a filmmaker and was a 2021 resident at the Jewish Film Institute for her documentary “Zelda”. She is currently filming a short on Women Torah Scribes that was awarded the DCJCC’s Matthew Harris Ornstein JxJ Short Film Fund. She loves Indian Food and is a Carrie Sun Miranda Moon.

Natasha Marder has spent the last 5 years as a director at Habonim Dror’s Camp Gilboa designing and coordinating youth and young adult programming. Her work focuses on youth leadership, critical thinking, and fostering community. Natasha also studied Sociology and Dance at Wesleyan University and is always looking for ways to bring creative expression into her work.

Email: Natasha@romemu.org

In addition to his spiritual leadership of the Romemu Brooklyn community, Rabbi Ben Perlstein is a staff chaplain in the spiritual care department of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and is board-certified through Neshama: Association of Jewish Chaplains. He received rabbinical ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he also completed an M.A. in Jewish Thought, focused on mysticism and ethics. During rabbinical school he was an active member of Romemu in Manhattan, serving as a Joseph S. Ingber Rabbinic Fellow and learning in the inaugural full-time summer cohort of Romemu Yeshiva.

He graduated summa cum laude from Tufts University with a B.A. in Political Science and has worked in a range of international contexts, especially involving Jewish history and the Holocaust through the global Jewish education organization Kivunim and FASPE (Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics). Rabbi Ben teaches regularly on creative applications of spiritual wisdom and practice to issues of public concern and pastoral need, and writes fiction.

Growing up between Atlanta, GA, and a kibbutz in northern Israel, Sela was always drawn to music, spiritualism, and event production. He started playing the piano at the age of 6, and participated in cross religion workshops and projects through Israel, India, and the United States. While at the kibbutz, Sela worked as a Cultural Manager, producing events, holidays and musical gatherings for all ages.

During his Bachelor’s degree at Tel Aviv University Sela continued to produce musical theater shows and live musical poetry events, and during his Master’s at NYU he produced live music concerts, recording sessions and had his music recorded with a full orchestra.

After graduation, Sela founded his own music label, where he produced countless songs, music scores, and live music performances.

Sela currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two kids.

Chazan Basya Schechter was ordained January 2016 by ALEPH Cantorial School, and has been the recipient of numerous compositional and project grants from NY State Council of the Arts and the American Music Center.  She is also known for her group Pharaoh’s Daughter, a seven-piece neohasidic world music ensemble that travels effortlessly through continents, key signatures, and languages with a genre-bending sound.

Mara Jill Herman is a Jewish activist and award-winning artist who endeavors to abolish antisemitism, advocates for gender equity, and helps protect human rights. Her work has been featured on CBS Mornings, NPR, New York Jewish Week, Moment, and more.

As an Event Producer, Mara orchestrates theatrical plays, benefit concerts, company launch parties, and panel discussions. Affiliations include: 92nd Street Y, Museum of the Moving Image, SheNYC Arts, Queens Theatre, The Tank, The Cell, The Green Room 42, and ART/NY.

Mara made her Carnegie Hall debut in We Are Here: Songs From The Holocaust and put her Hebrew vocals to work developing The Band’s Visit. She is a proud native New Yorker and alumna of Birthright Israel. Mara formerly sang in Temple Judea’s youth and professional choir for High Holiday services and is delighted to cultivate Jewish community with Romemu Brooklyn.