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.