Rabbi Ron Symons

Strengthening Relationships Across Jewish, Interfaith, and Civic Life.

  • Scholar-in-Residence, Teacher/Preacher, Keynote Speaker

  • Social Action Project Leader

  • Bridge-Building Facilitator and Consultant

  • Faith-Based Community Organizing Workshop Leader

  • Jewish Lifecycle Officiant

Providing life enhancing Jewish wisdom to meet contemporary interests and needs.

Getting to Know Each Other

I love drinking tea with others so that we can get to know each other.

As we get to know each other, I’ll color-in the lines to tell you about my upbringing in Lynbrook, NY, my great family, my passion for helping people make meaning by using Jewish wisdom, having impact through purpose driven actions, and my desire to help neighbors connect across real and perceived differences.

I can’t wait to learn about you and how we can connect.

Rabbi Ron Symons

A Little More About Me

I am known as a Jewish communal leader and community builder with deep experience designing leadership pathways, strengthening belonging, and mobilizing communities around Jewish values, pluralism, democracy, and collective responsibility.

I bring a rare combination of purpose driven executive strategy, meaning making, rabbinic leadership, experiential and text-based education, community organizing, and bridge-building across ideological, religious, civic, and communal divides.

I served as the Founding Director of the Center for Loving Kindness and Civic Engagement of the JCC of Greater Pittsburgh where we strove to strengthen the fabric of community by amplifying the long-held values of “love your neighbor as yourself” and “do not stand idle while your neighbor bleeds” while redefining “neighbor” from a geographic term to a moral concept. Having served a a first responder in Pittsburgh PA following the Tree of Life shooting in 2018, I am a trauma-informed practitioner committed to building resilient community proactively and in response to antisemitism and other bias.

Working in partnership with Christian and Muslim clergy and lay leaders, we improved police community relations, mitigated the impact of antisemitism and bias across our neighborhoods, led comforting vigils in the aftermath of hate crimes, supported Afghanistan immigrants as they began their new lives in Pittsburgh, enabled neighbors without resources to be first in line for COVID vaccines, and much more.

As a Reform Rabbi ordained by the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, I am eager to help you, your family, and friends with lifecycle and holiday celebrations while celebrating your diversity. As a community organizing rabbi, I am excited to support Jewish, interfaith, and civic organizations through scholar-in-residence and guest teaching (in person and on-line); social action projects, and bridge building opportunities.

I look forward to getting to know you over a cup of tea in person (in Greater New York) or on-line…

Ron

(I can be reached at rabbironsymons@gmail.com.)