Rabbi Simeon Cohen

Rabbi Simeon Cohen is the Senior Rabbi of Temple Beth Shalom. He joined the TBS community in July 2017 and served as Assistant Rabbi and then Associate Rabbi before becoming Senior Rabbi in 2022. As the congregation’s rabbi, he leads worship, lifecycle celebrations, pastoral care, preaching, and adult learning for TBS’s 680 families, and leads High Holiday services for more than 1,000 people each year.

Rabbi Cohen received rabbinic ordination and an M.A. in Jewish Education from the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS). Before rabbinical school, he completed the Joint Program between Columbia University and JTS. There he earned a B.A. in Philosophy, cum laude, from Columbia and a B.A. in Jewish Thought, magna cum laude, from JTS, writing his honors thesis on rabbinic thought in the writings of Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Rabbi Cohen is a leader in the Conservative movement and the wider Livingston community. He serves on the Rabbinic Cabinet of the Chancellor of JTS and as President of the Livingston Interfaith Clergy Association. In 2023, Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill named him a “2023 Hero” of New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District for his communal leadership. In 2024, the Essex County Board of County Commissioners honored him during Jewish Heritage Month. In summer 2026, he took part in the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Rabbinic Torah Institute in Jerusalem.

Rabbi Cohen is passionate about Torah, rabbinic literature, and Jewish philosophy. He has taught widely on medieval and modern Jewish thought and on Jewish ethics. In his rabbinic work, he draws on his love for Jewish tradition to inspire others to embrace Jewish learning and living in ways that are personally meaningful.

As a rabbinical student, Rabbi Cohen worked in many communities, including Camp Ramah in the Berkshires, the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale University, and the Forest Hills Jewish Center, where Rabbi Gerald Skolnik mentored him. He and his wife, Ariel, also served as Resident Directors of the Goldsmith Residence Hall at JTS, where they helped shape the undergraduate experience for 120 students.

When Rabbi Cohen is not studying the writings of Maimonides or Heschel, you can find him playing guitar, listening to classic rock or jazz, or reading science fiction and fantasy. Most of all, he loves spending time with Ariel, their daughters, Amalya and Sivan, and their dog, Ophelia.

You can reach Rabbi Cohen by email at [email protected].