Our Clergy

Rabbi Sam Kates-Goldman (he/him)

  • Rabbi Sam Kates-Goldman delights in teaching and learning, and is inspired by a deep love of text and distrust of certainty. He cultivates a community where we learn to trust our personal resonances with Jewish rituals and stories. Sam relies on imagination and generative dissent to surface new meanings, believing that when we do so we tend the growth of the tree we call Torah. Recognizing that the secrets buried in the text may be beyond words, he celebrates our capacity to surface these mysteries in song, dance, art, and the transcendent moments of life. 

    Growing up in Bangor, Maine, a small town with a small Jewish population, Sam learned Jewish community as a relational project where we are each responsible for shaping the Jewish world we need. He has deep gratitude for the many community organizers and activists who nurtured his love of justice. Sam weaves ecological awareness into his spiritual practice, drawing on his love of the mountains and oceans of the Pacific Northwest, where he lived for twenty years, and on his studies of environmental science. 

    Sam was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and was the 2025 recipient of the Rabbi Devora Bartnoff Prize for Spiritually Motivated Social Action. Before joining Kolot he served as a spiritual leader for Congregation Eitz Or in Seattle, Washington, and as Rabbinic Intern at Or Hadash in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. Prior to rabbinical school, Sam was a mechanic, community organizer, and visiting faculty at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.

Cantor Lisa B. Segal (she/her)

Talk to Cantor Lisa about:

  • Participating in communal singing or music making

  • A founding member of Kolot, Cantor Lisa B. Segal has served as co-and senior clergy for over 20 years. Ordained in 2011 by the Academy for Jewish Religion (AJR), Cantor Lisa also served as their Cantorial Director for two years (2012-14). With her unique voice and energy, Cantor Lisa crafts and leads Shabbat, holiday, and High Holy Day services and observances. In addition, she teaches, creates and leads all ranges of life cycle events to enhance Kolot members’ spiritual lives. She composes music, leads community events, and has regularly performed in numerous concerts, on Facebook, and on bimahs around the country.

    In partnership with Rabbi Lisa Grant, Cantor Lisa served as Consulting Editor for their award-winning and ground-breaking book and app, The Year of Mourning: A Jewish Journey, recording 14 songs for its companion app. Included in the app you can find Cantor Lisa’s original composition, Ratzo VaShov/Ebb and Flow, was featured at the opening of the 2021 ACC Convention, and she was commissioned to write a piece for T’ruah’s 2021 Gala, entitled Na’aseh V’Nishma, along with (now) Cantor Ze’evi Levtov. Notable performances include D’var Shirah – Music Meets Text at the Red Sea at the Eldridge Street Synagogue, a benefit she created and produced for the Academy for Jewish Religion, featuring spoken word artists and Jewish musicians in improvisation (music directed by Frank London of the Klezmatics), and Zero Church; the Prayer Project where she sang with The Roches at St. Ann’s Warehouse.

    Cantor Segal curated and appeared in many concerts created for Kolot - “Off the Bimah!” - featuring a range of notable and innovative Jewish musicians including Joey Weisenberg, Marty Ehrlich, Marc Ribot, Alicia Jo Rabins, Roy Nathanson, Alicia Svigals, and others, and she has performed with numerous cantors and choirs throughout the New York metropolitan area and beyond.

    Cantor Lisa is a Member of the ACC (American Conference of Cantors), an active alumna of AJR and Hevraya, the Institute for Jewish Spirituality’s Mindfulness meditation clergy cohort, and a longtime member of the Women Cantors Network. Cantor Lisa and her husband, writer and maggid Arthur “Ari” Strimling, live in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Talk to either Rabbi Sam or Cantor Lisa about:

  • Participating in communal singing or music making

  • Shabbat and holiday services 

  • Planning life cycle events such as weddings, conversions, and funerals

  • Pastoral needs/requests for support

  • Participating as a Darshan or Leyner 

  • Kabbalat Shabbat

Student Rabbi Molly Schulman (she/her)

  • Molly Schulman (she/her) is thrilled to return home to Brooklyn to join Kolot’s clergy team as the new Student Rabbi. She comes to the rabbinate by way of community organizing. After graduating from Tufts University with a degree in American Studies in 2016, Molly found her way into values-aligned, spiritually rich Jewish community through organizing with IfNotNow, building power with JOIN for Justice, and farming in community at Urban Adamah. She brings all of these communities and more into her work.

    Now a fourth-year student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Molly serves as the student representative to the Reconstructing Judaism board of governors, and sits on the boards of JOIN for Justice and Slingshot. At RRC, she has served as the Admissions and Recruitment Intern, completed a unit of CPE with the San Francisco Night Ministry, co-led services with RRC’s Music Collective, and organized with Rabbis for Ceasefire.

    Molly looks forward to getting to know this community — and introducing everyone to her puppy, Clarisse!

Student Rabbi Hadar Ahuvia (she/her)

  • Student Rabbi Hadar Ahuvia, who is entering her fourth year at Hebrew College in Boston, is a beloved and long-time leader of prayer at Kolot. She will continue to co-lead our beautiful monthly Kabbalat Shabbat services with Cantor Lisa.

Rabbi Emerita Ellen Lippmann (she/her)

  • Ellen Lippmann is the founder and Rabbi Emerita of Kolot Chayeinu. She is the former East Coast Director of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, and former director of the Jewish Women's Program at the New 14th Street Y in Manhattan.

    Rabbi Lippmann sits on the boards of JFREJ and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, is a grateful member of Rabbis for Ceasefire, and an honored member of the Social Services Transition Team for NYC Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani. She mentors rabbis and activists privately and via official mentoring programs.

    She was co-chair and served on the Board of T’ruah: the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights for 18 years. She served as the first social justice chair for the Women’s Rabbinic Network. She was the founder of the Soup Kitchen at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, and co-founder of the 15-year Children of Abraham Peace Walk: Jews, Christians and Muslims Walking Together in Brooklyn in Peace. She worked with NYCC and others on the Fight for $15, and with JFREJ on the early fight in NY State for the rights of domestic workers. Before retiring, she helped establish the system of working groups at Kolot Chayeinu to ensure broader embrace and a path to activism on racism, Israel and Palestine, and the rights of queer and trans people.

    Rabbi Lippmann was ordained in 1991 by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and also received there the degree of Master of Hebrew Letters. She holds a BA in English Language and Literature from Boston University and an MS in Library Science from Simmons College. Rabbi Lippmann and her wife are long-time Brooklyn residents and believe to be absolutely true what a Kolot Chayeinu member once said in jest: "IT DON'T GET ANY BETTER THAN BROOKLYN!"

Want to learn more about how Kolot is structured? See our organization chart here!