Rabbi Sarah Berman joined Central as Rabbi and Director of Adult Education in the summer of 2020 after serving the Central community for two years as a rabbinic intern. Her teaching focuses on Jewish art, history, and material culture, as well as on text and prayer.  

Growing up as part of a strong Reform community in Madison, Wisconsin, Rabbi Berman was active in Jewish life from an early age. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s in archaeology and art history at Brown University, where she was also active in the Reform chavurah. She then worked for more than a decade at the Seattle Art Museum, researching the museum’s broad permanent collections and serving as curatorial lead for the collections of Ancient Mediterranean and Islamic Art. While in Seattle, she also developed and taught courses for children, teens, and adults in Jewish communal settings. 

She is a recipient of fellowships from ARZA, the UJA-Federation of New York, and T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, as well as the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Tisch Fellowship. She is a docent at the Museum at Eldridge Street in New York City, and has worked with the Women’s Prison Association Hopper Home and Hour Children, organizations serving women transitioning from incarceration to independence. She served as rabbinic intern at Temple Sinai of Bergen County in New Jersey and Central Synagogue, and was a Tisch Intern at Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York and its Streicker Center for public programming and community education.