Rabbi Sharon Brous is a faculty member of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, and the founding rabbi of IKAR, a spiritual community dedicated to reanimating Jewish life by standing at the intersection of soulful, inventive religious practice and a deep commitment to social justice.
Since starting IKAR in 2004, Sharon has been recognized a number of times as one of the nation’s leading rabbis by Newsweek, The Daily Beast, and as one of the 50 most influential American Jews by the Forward. In 2013 she blessed the President and Vice President at the Inaugural National Prayer Service.
She sits on the faculty of Wexner Heritage and REBOOT, and serves on the board of Teruah – The Rabbinic Call to Human Rights and on the rabbinic advisory council to American Jewish World Service and Bend the Arc.
She was honored to receive the Lives of Commitment Award from Auburn Theological Seminary and was the inaugural recipient of the Inspired Leadership Award from the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles. Jewish Women International has honored her as a Woman to Watch.
Sharon was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2001 and received a Master’s Degree in human rights from Columbia University, where she also received her Bachelor’s Degree in 1995. After ordination, she served as a Rabbinic Fellow at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in New York City before moving to Los Angeles.
She lectures across the USA about new trends in American religious life, next generation engagement, a theology of social justice and the revitalization of religious and spiritual practice. She was a guest on Krista Tippett’s NPR program “Speaking of Faith” and served as a panelist and contributor to the Washington Post’s “On Faith” column.
Her writings appear in Jewish Megatrends; the Modern Jewish Girl’s Guide to Guilt, Who By Fire, Who By Water, Making Prayer Real, Righteous Indignation: a Jewish Call of Justice, A Dream of Zion, The Women’s Torah Commentary, and The Women’s Haftarah Commentary, as well as numerous other publications.
