Bio

Rabbi Steve Cohen has served as the senior rabbi of Congregation B’nai B’rith since 2004, after nineteen years as the rabbi and Executive Director of the Hillel Foundation at UC Santa Barbara.

In his capacity as senior rabbi, Steve’s primary responsibilities include teaching adults and youth, guiding the development of the congregation’s educational, worship, social action and cultural programs, providing pastoral counseling for congregants in need, helping families move through the great passages of life (birth, coming of age, marriage and death) with love and meaning, and working closely with the volunteer leadership of the congregation to build a vibrant Jewish community.

A native of Rochester, New York, Rabbi Cohen was born in 1957. He received his undergraduate degree in American History from Harvard University in 1979 and Rabbinic ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1985. His primary scholarly interests are in midrash and classical Torah commentary.  He and his wife Marian have been married since 1986 and have two grown children, Rachel and Ari.

In 2013 Steve and Marian took up long-distance backpacking, hiking the entire 211 miles of the John Muir Trail through the High Sierra.  Since then they have returned often to the Sierras as well as to the back country of Santa Barbara county. In his free time, Steve enjoys studying Torah with friends, going to the movies, identifying wildflowers, listening to a wide range of music, and davening at sunrise with the birds in his backyard.