Spiritual Humanistic Judaism draws on a living lineage of rabbis who lead, teach and write within Humanistic and Reconstructionist Judaism today. This page introduces them.

Martin H. Di Maggio

Martin H. Di Maggio is the spiritual leader of Humanistic Judaism UK and co-leader at Spinoza Havurah. A graduate of the IISHJ’s leadership programme, where he studied for four years, he began writing a new siddur during the Covid-19 lockdown of 2020 for Spiritual Humanistic Jews — the project that would become Tefilotenu, this community’s own prayerbook.

At Limmud Festival 2024, he led a Kabbalat Shabbat service conducted without theistic language — the only service that year from a non-Orthodox denomination — and presented a session on his siddur and the beliefs underpinning Humanistic Judaism. In 2024 he officiated Spinoza Havurah’s first-ever Bar Mitzvah ceremony, and is due to receive semichah in 2026.

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Rabbi Jonathan Cohen

Rabbi Jonathan Cohen served as Oraynu Toronto’s congregational rabbi during the 2021 High Holidays. A longtime law professor at the University of Florida, he received his M.A. in Jewish Studies from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and rabbinical ordination through the Jewish Leaders Spiritual Institute, alongside A.B., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Economics and a law degree, all from Harvard University.

He believes Humanistic Judaism is a place where people can say what they mean and mean what they say — honest about what they believe and what they don’t — and that it offers a large, welcoming tent where atheists, agnostics and theists alike can search together for a meaningful Jewish life.

Watch Rabbi Jonathan Cohen →

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Tzemah Yoreh

Rabbi Dr. Tzemah Yoreh leads the City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism in New York and was ordained through the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism. He holds a Ph.D. in Bible from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a second doctorate, on the Wisdom literature of the Hellenistic period, from the University of Toronto; his scholarship traces the redaction history of the Torah through Kings, published in the Kernel to Canon series.

“I became a Humanist rabbi,” he has said, “because I feel a deep investment in making Jewish texts and traditions meaningful to people through the lens of their own life experiences.” That conviction shapes his practice throughout — including at Darshan Yeshiva, where he mentors people through conversion with flexible, personally meaningful ritual rather than a single fixed formula. His encouragement and example helped shape Tefilotenu, this community’s siddur.

City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism →

Frank Tamburello

Rabbi Frank Tamburello was born in New York City and worked as a foreign-language teacher on Long Island before training as a rabbi, earning master’s degrees in Spanish, Eastern Religious Studies and Interfaith Studies along the way. He was ordained in 2004 by Rabbi Joseph Gelberman, and is a certified celebrant with the Humanist Society of the American Humanist Association.

Since 2010 he has served as ceremonial chairperson and rabbi of the Westchester Community for Humanistic Judaism, and since 2013 as spiritual leader of MAKOR, alongside writing for local Westchester papers on progressive Jewish life and serving on the Beit Din of Rabbinical Seminary International, which evaluates and ordains candidates in its Modern Rabbi program.

Westchester Community for Humanistic Judaism →

See also Tefilotenu, our own siddur.