Rabbi Steven Goldstein joins The Reform Temple of Rockland after decades as a Jewish communal leader and civil rights lawyer.
Before his 2026 ordination by the Academy for Jewish Religion, Rabbi Steven served as CEO of state and national civil rights organizations, and counsel to the U.S. House and Senate.
On Capitol Hill, he cowrote landmark laws to protect reproductive choice and reduce gun violence, and helped to advance U.S. aid to Israel. During his career, he has played a role in passing more than 200 laws, and his work has been the subject of two motion pictures.
A passionate Zionist, Rabbi Steven has devoted much of his public life to strengthening support for Israel and the Jewish people. He was an AIPAC Leffell Rabbinic Fellow, and the Israeli Consulate in New York named him one of the 50 most influential LGBTQ Jews.
He may be best known in our region as the founder of Garden State Equality, where he led New Jersey’s successful campaign for marriage equality. His advocacy was the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary Freeheld, later adapted into a feature film in which he was played by Steve Carell.
An innovative educator, Rabbi Steven has been Education Director at Old York Road Temple–Beth Am in Philadelphia, a lecturer at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and an associate professor at Rutgers Law School.
Rabbi Steven holds a B.A. summa cum laude from Brandeis University, an M.P.P. from the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was editor in chief of the Harvard Journal of Public Policy, an M.S. from Columbia Journalism School, a J.D. from Columbia Law School, and both ordination and a master’s degree in Jewish Studies from AJR.
He twice received AJR’s annual awards for outstanding creative liturgy. His rabbinic thesis won the Whizin Prize for Jewish Ethics, a competition open to scholars worldwide.
Early in his career, Rabbi Steven won 10 Emmy Awards as an investigative news producer and worked as a producer for The Oprah Winfrey Show. In 2019, HarperCollins published his book on likeability and leadership, The Turn-On: How the Powerful Make Us Like Them.
