Rabbi Barbara Symons: Is Prophetic Judaism Listening to the Prophets?

Rabbi Barbara Symons challenges Reform Judaism to engage with often-neglected Prophetic books.

Rabbi Barbara Symons graduated from the University of Michigan and was ordained by Hebrew union College in 1994. Since 2006, she has been serving Temple David in Monroeville, Pennsylvania just outside of Pittsburgh. She loves to pray with and learn with people of all ages as well as actively work together to repair the world. She is deeply involved in the interfaith community primarily through her work with the Monroeville Interfaith Ministerium of which she is past President and through the Catholic Jewish Education Enrichment program. Barbara is very engaged with the local community, serving on the hospital’s clergy board and rabbinic groups, both of which she has served as president, as well as with the town council, school board and library. She is thrilled to have even a small part in raising up prophetic voices through the many diverse voices included in her book Prophetic Voices: Renewing and Reimagining Haftarah (CCAR Press). Barbara met her husband Rabbi Ron Symons during their first week in Jerusalem at Hebrew Union College and is daily and deeply proud of, and inspired by, him and their three children all of whom are not only committed Jews but learned, creative Jewish professionals.