Samara Schwartz

Samara Schwartz comes to us from a career in Jewish education in synagogues and day schools all over the country. Most recently the Director of Youth Learning and Engagement at Temple Emanu-El of Westfield, NJ, she has taught middle schoolers about tzedakah in Atlanta, high schoolers about Jewish ethics in Las Vegas, pre-schoolers about Jewish holidays in Anchorage, Alaska, and adults about Talmud in Houston, as well as people of all ages in many places, including Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and New York. Her responsibilities have ranged widely, from revamping Hebrew programs to meaningful Holocaust education, lifting up Jewish history to diving deeply into Jewish texts. She is proud to have been entrusted with learning and community building involving learners from 9 days to 90 years old.

Samara holds BAs in Bible from the Jewish Theological Seminary and Philosophy from Columbia University, a Masters Degree in Bible and the Ancient Near East from Brandeis, and a Certificate in the Teaching of Advanced Jewish Text from the Pardes Institute in Jerusalem. She is also pleased to be an alumna of the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute, which helps educational leaders transform their schools into places where the teachers learn together in community over their whole careers, building cultures where both Jewish content and understanding of teaching and learning are at the core.

After her long sojourn across the nation, Samara is thrilled to be coming to the foot of the mountains - in more ways than one! At the mountain, we have always found strength in community, passionate connection to the divine around us, and commitment to a more just and beautiful tomorrow. She is so pleased and proud to be asked to join the Har HaShem
community, to share her connections with yours, and lend her strength to these purposes.

She can’t wait to join you in community, in creativity, in song, in prayer, in protest, in storytelling, and in study. If you want to join her in her semi-obsessive love for trivia, her pub trivia team is always available. She’s less sold on joining you in winter sports, but could probably be persuaded to try with a cup of cocoa on a lure.