Over 40 years, Rabbi Rolando Matalon helped turn B’nai Jeshurun into one of the most influential synagogues in American Jewish life. This month, he’s retiring.
During his tenure, “BJ” evolved from a struggling Upper West Side congregation into a national model for spiritually vibrant liberal Judaism. It became known for ecstatic music, participatory prayer, social justice activism and a willingness to confront some of the Jewish community’s most divisive questions.
Matalon is also part of a generation of leaders, now nearing or past retirement age, who created post-1960s “big tent” Jewish institutions. These were synagogues and organizations built on a consensus model that, however fragile, insisted Jews could unite around Israel, social action and Jewish culture and education. In recent years, BJ, like many American synagogues, has seen that consensus tested by differences over Israel, the anti-Zionist and antisemitic eruptions that followed Oct. 7, and a polarized political climate.
“We need to rediscover what binds us together in our diversity,” Matalon told me recently, when I asked him what challenges he is leaving to the next generation of Jewish leaders.
Born and raised in Argentina, Matalon, 69, joined the BJ staff as a rabbinical student. After his ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary, he became assistant rabbi to his mentor, Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer, the American Conservative rabbi and activist who lived and worked in Argentina for 26 years. Meyer had returned to New York in 1984 to revive what is America’s oldest Ashkenazi synagogue, a task Matalon and another young Argentine rabbi, Marcelo Bronstein, inherited after Meyer’s death in 1993. (Three decades later, the congregation had to reconsider Meyer’s legacy when an internal investigation determined that a sexual assault allegation against Meyer was credible.)
In 1988, the synagogue gave up its affiliation with the Conservative movement to become independent.
With Matalon as “rosh kehilla,” or community head, the synagogue became especially known for integrating Sephardic and Middle Eastern liturgical music into the Ashkenazi prayer service and for fostering difficult conversations around Israel, Zionism and intermarriage. In the pre-JDate era, its Friday night service for singles was a mecca for Jews in search of partners.
Matalon, who will be succeeded as rosh kehilla by longtime BJ Senior Rabbi Felicia Sol, says he has no intention of stepping away from Jewish spiritual life. He plans to launch a new institute under the BJ umbrella to help rabbis, cantors, musicians and prayer leaders create “participatory, soulful, dynamic” prayer experiences rooted in the musical traditions of Jewish communities around the world.
He also hopes to spend more time exploring New York’s diverse synagogues — especially Sephardic communities. “One thing that defines me is that I cross boundaries easily,” said Matalon, whose paternal grandparents were Syrian Jews from Aleppo. “I feel spiritually comfortable in many different places.”
On Tuesday we talked about the secret to BJ’s rebirth, how he navigated the clergy’s decision to perform interfaith marriages, and his response to congregants who felt he was too critical of Israel.
The conversation was edited for length and clarity.
After his ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1986, Matalon, above, served as assistant rabbi to his mentor, Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer. (Courtesy B’nai Jeshurun)
When I think about BJ, I think of three things: the revival of liberal Judaism — religiously, socially and politically, or however you might want to define it; the power of music as a tool for the spirit; and conflict resolution, or at least wrestling with conflict, whether we’re talking about intermarriage or, now, Israel and political polarization. Do you agree with that framing, and did I miss anything?
No, I think that’s right on. I think those are the main things that define the last 40 years. BJ was restarted after it was almost bankrupt, financially and spiritually. BJ was on life support when my mentor and teacher, Rabbi Marshall Meyer, came in 1985.
He came because there was a need for more Conservative synagogues in New York City, particularly on the Upper West Side. A number of people were interested in reviving BJ and creating a vibrant community there. Marshall brought this vision of community and prayer and social justice in combination.
The vision was prayer and music, rebuilding community, and addressing some of the social justice issues that were at the center in those days: Israel-Palestine, AIDS, LGBT Jews, homelessness, hunger. We were tackling all these things in one way or another, not in the macro picture but in the micro picture, and that became BJ’s DNA.
After Marshall died in 1993, I continued BJ’s leadership, and I began introducing music from other Jewish communities around the world. That also became a very important distinction of BJ.
Can you think of a moment — because every synagogue dreams of the kind of revival BJ had — where you realized, “This is working”? BJ has some structural advantages; it’s on the very Jewish Upper West Side, to which young Jews were flocking in the ’80s and ’90s. But still I imagine it wasn’t a given. What was the moment or the program where you realized people were finding something they hadn’t had before?
It wasn’t sudden exponential growth from year one. It was gradual. It was building community, connecting people to people, creating a kind of community where people would be there for each other — visiting when people were sick, having Shabbat dinners together, being there for mourners.
We were constantly holding meetings for prospective members and explaining our vision: that we wanted a community deeply connected to one another, not just people who came to services and left, but people who wanted to spend time together, wrestle with big and small issues together.
On Shabbat morning we had open conversations based on the parsha [Torah portion]. First Marshall and I would have a brief dialogue, then we’d open it up to everyone. People heard each other’s ideas, connected with each other, and then continued the conversations afterward over lunch.
Eventually we developed a strong core — people who were committed and volunteering. We had a homeless shelter. We served lunch weekly to people in need, all prepared by volunteers. We went out for Soviet Jewry. In 1988 we began spiritual gatherings for people with AIDS. We held a Passover seder for people with AIDS before Pesach, and then monthly Shabbat lunches.
Then people started bringing their friends.
In 1991, our sanctuary ceiling collapsed, and we spent several months in the gym at the Heschel School, which had once been BJ’s community house before it was sold because BJ was in debt. Then we moved into the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew on West End Avenue.
When we moved there, articles started getting written about us, people heard about us, and that’s when growth became sustained. By the mid-1990s we had a huge influx of young people, most of them single.
BJ became a place where people met each other within a context of prayer and music and celebration and joy. I think that was a turning point.
I’m glad you mentioned the singles scene, which was legendary. [In 1996, the New York Times reported that singles represented more than half of the congregation.]
Yes. But that coalesced around a very strong core of members that had been forged over the previous five or six years. The community was growing slowly, with a lot of effort, and then suddenly people started coming from everywhere.
I don’t know if there was one specific thing, but after we moved to the church, the growth became sustained.
Marshall saw the beginning of the growth, but he didn’t really see the explosion. After he died, it became exponential. We filled the church and had to create a second Kabbalat Shabbat service. My colleagues and I rotated — one would lead the early service, one the late service. Every Friday I had to announce at home whether I had the early or late service so we’d know when Shabbat dinner would happen. We had two services for quite a long time, through the mid-1990s into the 2000s.
At that time we were really the only option in town. Later, other congregations started growing, too, and new communities opened, like Romemu, so eventually there were more options.
When you mention options, what were people hungry for that they weren’t finding elsewhere?
People were hungry for services that were musical and joyful and participatory. They wanted something engaging, not passive services that were lengthy and disconnected.
BJ services were engaging through music and a message of welcome. We tried to say something short but relevant about the human condition or about what was happening in the world — whether it was [Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin’s assassination, the World Trade Center [attacks], or broader moral and spiritual struggles people were facing: loneliness, longing, community.
People came to hear that in the context of music and joy. There was dancing in the aisles welcoming Shabbat. There were Shabbat dinners afterward where people spent time together, made friends, met partners.
A lot of people met at BJ services and eventually came back married.
Mtalon leads a havdalah service in 2023. Rabbi Felicia Sol, shown to his left, will succeed Matalon as BJ’s “rosh kehillah beginning July 1, 2026. (Courtesy B’nai Jeshurun)
This almost sounds like a golden age, although of course there were always conflicts in the Jewish community — you mentioned Rabin’s assassination, for example. But I want to ask how you and your leadership dealt with conflict, starting with the 2017 decision for clergy to officiate at interfaith weddings when it was, and still is, forbidden by the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, which you belonged to [until 2018].
You carried out an intense process of consulting with other rabbis and experts, a year-long study program and small group meetings. As a result you decided that you would officiate under certain strict conditions, despite warnings from some colleagues that you would be crossing a “red line.” What insights led you to that conclusion?
One thing we discovered was that in ancient Jewish history, Jewish identity was not always binary. It wasn’t simply “Jewish” or “not Jewish.” There was more of a continuum. People belonged to Jewish families and communities without necessarily being halachically Jewish.
The second thing was that historically, there had been periods when people intermarried because they were rejecting Jewish community altogether. But in our time, many people intermarry while still wanting very much to remain connected to Jewish life. They want their partners involved. Their marrying someone non-Jewish is not necessarily a rejection of Judaism.
Putting all that together, we concluded that if a couple wanted to create a Jewish home, it was more important to us that they build a Jewish life and raise Jewish children [compared to] two Jews who had no interest in Jewish living whatsoever.
So we said: If a couple commits to building a Jewish home, raising Jewish children, converting children when necessary through mikveh [ritual immersion] at an early age, and participating in Jewish community, then we would officiate. We would not perform a kiddushin, traditional ceremony, exactly as it had been done, but a modified ceremony. The couple also had to commit to a serious process of learning and engagement with the rabbi over nine months to a year, and at some point explicitly affirm their commitment to a Jewish home and Jewish child-rearing.
What was the response, especially among interfaith couples? Did BJ become a magnet for interfaith weddings?
One might think people would then line up at the door, but that didn’t happen. The first wedding I officiated at actually took place a year later. Since then I’ve officiated at maybe six or seven or eight such weddings total over nearly a decade.
All of those couples have remained deeply connected to the community. I don’t officiate for people who are not members or not engaged in BJ life. In every case, the non-Jewish partner became integrated into Jewish family life. The children have either been born to Jewish mothers or converted in infancy when necessary.
I thought many more people would come, but once you establish serious conditions and expectations within the context of community, it naturally limits the number.
I’m very pleased with the decision because it also broadcast that BJ is a welcoming community that wants to engage people rather than push them away. At the same time, we didn’t eliminate standards or expectations altogether. We said: If you’re interested, come and let’s engage seriously.
What was the impact on the congregation? Did people leave in protest?
Only one person left, and after a couple of years she came back.
Another conflict that’s become central — maybe the central conflict now — is Israel. This predates Oct. 7. In 2012 and 2014 some of your congregants complained that the rabbis had staked out public positions that were too critical of Israel. How did you respond?
We realized over time that the congregation had become ideologically diverse around Israel. During the first 14 or 15 years of my tenure, most people were pretty aligned. If there were dissenting voices, they were very few.
But after the second intifada, after 9/11, and as the congregation grew more diverse for many different reasons — people joining because they loved the music, because they had friends there, because they liked the Hebrew school — the community changed. People weren’t necessarily joining because they shared the congregation’s political outlook on Israel.
At some point this came to a head, and we realized many congregants did not necessarily agree with the leadership’s message. After several painful experiences, we concluded that we needed to help the congregation learn how to talk about Israel.
So we created the Israel Dialogue Initiative [in 2014]. We essentially trained ourselves as a community in how to listen to one another, how to hold our own convictions without demeaning others, how to disagree respectfully. It was extremely effective.
Now we live with genuine diversity in the congregation. The rabbinic leadership probably leans somewhat more left than some congregants would prefer, but I think we’ve successfully communicated that there is openness to conversation.
Whenever we bring speakers or panels, there is always room for discussion. It’s never simply: “This is the truth, and you may not question it.”
Did your own messaging change — in sermons, public statements, political advocacy? Did you pull back?
I continued delivering my messages, but I tried to become more nuanced and more humble. This became part of our larger commitment: to dwell within complexity and nuance.
It’s not that I fundamentally changed my views. But there was a period when I became very concerned about divisiveness and about alienating people. I knew some of my positions would provoke strong reactions. So I had to learn how to say what I wanted to say in ways people could actually hear.
How do you understand the changes in the congregation and in American Jewish life after Oct. 7? What feels radically different now?
There is enormous fear right now. The situation is extraordinarily complex, and the conversation everywhere is extraordinarily fraught. People feel they must think a thousand times before saying or writing anything. There is fear, pain, shame, anxiety. The emotional landscape is incredibly delicate.
Everything feels more complicated than ever before — whether we’re talking about Gaza, Iran, or political figures like [New York City Mayor Zohran] Mamdani.
BJ celebrated its congregation’s 200th anniversary in 2025. At left, the old B’nai Jeshurun synagogue on Madison Ave., built in 1884; the current B’nai Jeshurun sanctuary in 2024, when membership was over 1,950 households. (Courtesy B’nai Jeshurun; Joseph Strauss)
At BJ we’ve remained committed to nuance and moral complexity, and my colleagues will continue that work carefully and sensitively. We also remain committed to bringing forward Israelis and Palestinians who still want dialogue and peace. Even when those voices seem marginal, we want to amplify them and move them toward the center.
That has always been part of BJ’s mission.
Let me ask specifically about anti-Zionism among younger Jews. Is there a critical mass of anti-Zionism within the synagogue?
No, not within the congregation itself. But there are children of congregants who are exposed to anti-Zionist ideas, and I believe very strongly that we need to engage them rather than push them away. We need to expose them to nuance and complexity and genuinely wrestle with them.
You’ll notice a common theme here: Whether we’re talking about people with AIDS, interfaith couples, or anti-Zionist young Jews, my instinct is always engagement. Keep people inside the community and inside dialogue. Find common ground. Don’t close doors.
I feel similarly in politics more broadly. There are things Mayor Mamdani says that I strongly disagree with, and things I agree with. But I support maintaining engagement with him and his administration, especially around antisemitism.
Disengagement is a terrible mistake.
If you were beginning your rabbinate right now, what would worry you most about American Jewish life? And what opportunities would you try to seize?
I would be very worried about the enormous divisions within the Jewish community, especially the growing rupture between Israeli Jews and American Jews. A paradigm that defined Jewish life for decades is breaking apart. We are entering a new paradigm, and we need to figure out what comes next.
When you talk about a broken paradigm, can I suggest what you might mean? Israeli and American Jews were united behind the idea of a democratic Jewish state — and the liberal American Jewish majority felt they could rally around Israel because it represented their values. That connection has frayed as the result of increasingly right-wing governments in Israel.
Exactly. And beyond that, we believed we were one unified Jewish community. Unfortunately, Israel became the primary organizing force of Jewish identity. I say “unfortunately” not because I have anything against Israel, but our unifying factor used to be Judaism itself — Torah, spirituality, religious life. Once Israel became a source of internal division instead of unity, the community started fragmenting. Israel remains an essential part of Jewish identity, but it —or antisemitism — cannot be the only thing holding us together.
We need to rediscover what binds us together in our diversity.
What are the possibilities?
The Torah, prayer, music, study — these are profound resources, but we are not bringing them fully to bear on the moral and spiritual crises we face. So much communal attention is focused on Israel, antisemitism and geopolitics that we are neglecting the spiritual and ethical resources of Judaism itself.
We need to bring people back to prayer, learning, song, and rediscovery of the beauty and depth of Jewish tradition.
Reporting the stories that define our era. When history unfolds in real-time, the Jewish world turns to JTA. Your support ensures we can document the complexities of war and the resilience of Jewish communities with integrity.
