Clergy

Rabbi Daniel Polish
Rabbi Polish was born in Ithaca, New York, and raised and schooled in Evanston, Illinois. He received his B.A. in Philosophy from Northwestern University and attended Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio where he was ordained in 1967, receiving his B.H.L and M.A.H.L. degrees. He earned his Ph.D. in History of Religion from Harvard University in 1973. From 1973 to 1977, Rabbi Polish was the Director of Education for Inter/Met, an interfaith, interracial program for training clergy in Washington, DC. From 1977 to 1981, Rabbi Polish served as Associate Executive Vice President and Director of the Washington Office of the Synagogue Council of America, the umbrella agency for the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox movements in the United States. In that capacity, he helped develop policy on a number of issues critical to the Jewish community. He served as a delegate to the World Zionist Congress in 2002.
Rabbi Polish has taught at Harvard, Tufts University and the University of Maryland. While in Los Angeles he taught at Occidental College and at the Los Angeles School of the Hebrew Union College. He has served on the Executive Board of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and on the Editorial Board of its Journal. The Rabbi has published numerous articles in journals of Jewish and general interest and his reviews appear regularly in the Journal of Ecumenical Studies. He is a regular contributor to the Jesuit journal, America. His editorial, “A Painful Legacy: Jews and Catholics Struggle to Understand Edith Stein and Auschwitz” which appeared in Ecumenical Trends, was chosen as one of the best editorials in a Catholic publication by the Catholic Press Association. Rabbi Polish is the author of Bringing The Psalms to Life and Keeping Faith with the Psalms, and his latest book is Talking About God.
Rabbi Polish has been involved in interfaith dialogue at the highest levels on behalf of the Jewish community. In 2003, he was part of a delegation that met with Cardinals from The Holy See in Vatican City, to discuss a variety of issues of concern to the two communities. In 2004, he was invited to deliver a paper at a ground-breaking gathering in Thesalonika Greece that represented the first official meeting between representatives of the international Jewish community and the representatives of the Greek Orthodox Church. He is currently part of the dialogue between the American Jewish community and the leadership of the Presbyterian Church. In 2005, and again in 2008 Rabbi Polish was part of a team comprised of a prominent scholars of religion sponsored by the State Department that met with important Muslim religious leaders throughout South Asia for the purpose of promoting interfaith understanding. In October, 2008 Rabbi Polish was part of a delegation of Jewish leaders who met with Pope Benedict XVI to discuss current issues between the Jewish community and the Catholic Church.
Prior to his appointment as spiritual leader of Shir Chadash, Rabbi Polish has served as a congregational rabbi at Temple Israel in Los Angeles, Temple Beth-El in Birmingham, Michigan and at Vassar Temple in Poughkeepsie.
Rabbi Polish lives in Poughkeepsie with his wife Cantor Gail Hirschenfang and daughter Leah. Rabbi Polish’s two adult sons, Jonathan and Ari, live in Chicago.

Cantor Gail Hirschenfang
Shir Chadash, which in Hebrew means a new song, embraces Cantor Gail P. Hirschenfang as our Cantor. Nationally recognized as one of the finest cantorial voices singing today, she is greatly admired for her seamless integration of an extensive repertoire of traditional and modern Jewish music into worship. The purity of her voice lifts the spirit. In the words of a local composer and musician, who was moved to write an original piece for her, “I could listen to her sing all day!”

Cantor Hirschenfang was invested in 1981 by the Hebrew Union College School of Sacred Music, as one of the first women cantors. She received her Master of Sacred Music degree from Hebrew Union College in 1988.

Cantor Hirschenfang, a soprano, has performed widely throughout the United States and Canada. In 1989, she was the first Reform cantor to give a concert at the newly opened Jewish Cultural Center in Moscow. Closer to home, Cantor Hirschenfang was a finalist in the Metropolitan Opera Auditions in 1985. She has also been a soprano soloist with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra performing with conductor Julius Rudel and with the Detroit Symphony with conductor Semyon Bychkov. She was one of the founder members and performers in the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival.

Active on a national level, Cantor Hirschenfang served three years as cantorial chair for the Music Commission of the Union for Reform Judaism. In 1999, she published the article, “Jewish Music – Setting the Course” in the Centennial publication of the American Conference of Cantors and Guild of Temple Musicians. Cantor Hirschenfang currently holds a national position as Director of Member Support for the American Conference of Cantors, the professional arm of the Reform cantorate in North America. In this capacity she assists cantors and congregations in their professional relations and mutual covenants. She is also the Chair of the Endowment of the American Conference of Cantors.

In addition to her appointment at Shir Chadash, Cantor Hirschenfang has served on the pulpit as a full time cantor and music director of large congregations in Baltimore, Buffalo and Detroit.

Cantor Hirschenfang is thrilled to be Cantor and Educational Director of Congregation Shir Chadash.

Cantor Hirschenfang is married to Rabbi Daniel F. Polish. They take great joy in being the proud parents of Leah Yonina.

Leonard A. Schoolman, Rabbi Emeritus
Rabbi Leonard A. Schoolman honored our congregation by leading our first High Holy Day services in the Fall of 2000 and went on to become our spiritual leader the next year. Bringing us his years of experience as a noted scholar, author, educator and spiritual leader, our congregation enjoyed moving services, provocative sermons and thoughtful and inspiring Torah study. Rabbi Schoolman continues to lead occasional services and study for Shir Chadash. In gratitude and appreciation of the generosity of Rabbi Schoolman, and his wife Diana, the congregation conferred upon him the title of Rabbi Emeritus.

As the resident rabbi of St. Batholomew’s Church on Park Avenue in Manhattan, Rabbi Schoolman directs the church’s Center for Religious Inquiry, an innovative adult education program that explores differences and similarities among religions. The program includes courses on bio-ethics, Islam, messianic groups, and the Jewish roots of Christian liturgy.

With a reputation as an engaging, witty lecturer, Rabbi Schoolman says that St. Bart’s “…is a place for me to prove that Judaism intellectually can hold its head up.”

With Rabbi Schoolman in residence, St, Bart’s has held Hanukkah parties complete with latkes, applesauce, and sour cream, and its Advent calendar says, “Do a mitzvah, a good deed for someone. Do not let them know.”

Rabbi Schoolman was the National Director of Programs for the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the central agency of Reform Judaism in the United States and Canada for 18 years. He served congregations in Los Angeles, Miami and St. Paul, Minnesota. The author of numerous books and articles, Rabbi Schoolman was the administrative editor of The Torah: A Modern Commentary.

Rabbi Schoolman received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. In college, he met Rabbi Alexander M. Shindler, who became a formidable leader of Reform Jews, and who inspired the young Schoolman to become a rabbi. Rabbi Schoolman attended the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, where he was ordained a Rabbi and earned a Bachelor of Hebrew Letters degree and a Master of Arts in Hebrew Letters. A Doctor of Divinity was conferred in 1988.

Rabbi Schoolman was raised in Brooklyn and is married to Diana, a language instructor. Rabbi Schoolman and his wife are the parents of two adult daughters. Rabbi and Diana Schoolman divide their time between their apartment in New York City and their country home in Chatham, NY.