Rabbi Peter H. Schweitzer
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Rabbi Peter H. Schweitzer has been a leader of The City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism since 1992 when he joined the congregation a year after its founding. For the next fourteen years he offered his services to the congregation as a volunteer, while working as a clinical social worker for Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services in Brooklyn.
As the congregation approached one hundred households, it became clear that professionalization would be necessary to secure the congregation's future. In 2005, the Congregation was awarded a challenge grant that became the catalyst for members of The City Congregation to support the congregation's growth and stability with the hiring of Rabbi Schweitzer.
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WRITINGS
Click each entry to read more
The Liberated Haggadah: A Passover Celebration for Cultural, Secular and Humanistic Jews (The Center for Cultural Judaism, 2006)
A Modern Lamentation: A Memorial to 9/11 (The City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism, Rosh Hashanah, 2002)
A Rabbi's Journey to Secular Humanistic Judaism (Shma, 2000)
Let Me Think for Myself: Alternative ways to celebrate a bar or bat mitzvah (Tweens & Teens, Oct. 2006)
New Ways to Say "I Do" (Jewish Currents, Jan-Feb. 2008)
Read more articles and talks by Rabbi Schweitzer.Click here.
THE PETER H. SCHWEITZER COLLECTION OF JEWISH-AMERICANA
at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia
Learn about how Rabbi Schweitzer developed his collection in The Making of a Collection (NMAJH, 2007)
Read the NMAJH press release that describes this important collection.
Click here to read Moment Magazine's feature (Aug/Sept 2007) about Rabbi Schweitzer and his collection.
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| Rabbi Schweitzer is a recognized leader of Humanistic Judaism. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Humanistic Judaism and is the former president of the Association of Humanistic Rabbis. He contributes the Humanistic perspective to Moment Magazine's "Ask the Rabbi" column. He also writes a column called New Jewish Rituals for Jewish Currents magazine.
Rabbi
Schweitzer was ordained in 1979 from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish
Institute of Religion and went on to serve a congregation in
Indianapolis. But doubts arose as he questioned the message he was
espousing. He left the rabbinate and returned to New York City where he
found new interests in the publishing business and then social work.
Even
though he left the rabbinate, he continued to foster and study Jewish
identity. For 25 years, he amassed one of the most significant
collections of Jewish Americana, with more than 10,000 items and
artifacts, which he donated to the National Museum of American Jewish
History in Philadelphia in 2005.
In 1992, when he first
learned about Humanistic Judaism, he realized that he had found a home
again. "Humanistic Judaism was not a choice in my youth," Rabbi
Schweitzer said, "otherwise it would have been very compelling. But now
we can raise our children in this movement and also find a meaningful
identity for ourselves. Equally important, today we have our own
rabbinic institution. Young women and men can choose this route and not
take the long away around that I did."
Rabbi Schweitzer
received his B.A. from Oberlin College, his ordination from Hebrew
Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and his M.S.W. from New York
University. He resides on the Upper West Side in Manhattan with wife,
Myrna Baron, Executive Director of
The Center for Cultural Judaism, and children Blair and Oren.
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| A welcoming community
of cultural, secular Jews
and their families.
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For more information, contact Rabbi Peter Schweitzer, New York City's only Humanistic rabbi.
Call 212-213-1002 or email rabbipeter@earthlink.net.
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