Rabbi Sharon Brous

Rabbi Sharon Brous was a participant on Encounter’s August 2017 Intensive Leadership Seminar. Rabbi Brous joined the program, “to gain a deeper understanding of the reality on the ground, to hear from Palestinians about their daily challenges and struggles, to hear where they find hope and what they think might improve the situation…. [and for Palestinians] to know that American Jews care enough to come and bear witness, to hear their stories and learn about their lives.” 

Rabbi Sharon Brous is the senior and founding rabbi of IKAR (www.ikar-la.org), which launched in 2004 with the goal of reinvigorating Jewish tradition and practice and inspiring people of faith to reclaim a moral and prophetic voice. IKAR, one of the fastest growing and most influential Jewish congregations in the country, is credited with sparking a rethinking of religious life in a time of unprecedented disaffection and declining affiliation. Brous’s 2016 TED talk, “Reclaiming Religion,” has been viewed by more than 1.2 million people and translated into 19 languages. In 2013, she blessed President Obama and Vice President Biden at the Inaugural National Prayer Service, and in 2017, she spoke at the Women’s March in Washington, DC. Brous was named #1 on the Newsweek/The Daily Beast list of the most influential Rabbis in America, and has been recognized numerous times by The Forward and the Jerusalem Post as one of the fifty most influential Jews.

Brous, who graduated from Columbia University and was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary, is an Auburn Senior Fellow, sits on the faculty of the Shalom Hartman Institute-North America and REBOOT, and serves on the International Council of the New Israel Fund and the national steering committee for the Poor People’s Campaign.