Rabbi Joshua Samuels
Congregation Beth Israel welcomed Rabbi Joshua Samuels as its spiritual leader in July 2012.
Rabbi Samuels previously served Temple Beth Hillel in the Los Angeles area. During his tenure there, Samuels enjoyed teaching adult education courses, organizing annual community-wide days of social action, providing spiritual care to home-bound congregants, interacting with the early education students and leading Jews and non-Jews in prayer and Jewish ritual life.
Prior to Temple Beth Hillel, Rabbi Samuels received his ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem and Los Angeles. It was during these 5 years that he served Jewish communities in Santa Barbara and Temecula, CA. Samuels also honed his skills in providing pastoral care to hospice and hospital patients working at UCLA Medical Center and Kaiser Home Hospice. In addition, he was the recipient of The Samson H. Levey Memorial Prize for showing greatest promise in the study of Rabbinic literature and Talmud.
Rabbi Samuels attended University of Wisconsin-Madison, receiving a B.S. in Marketing. For six years, prior to entering rabbinical school, Samuels worked in institutional equity sales and brokerage operations in San Francisco and Los Angeles at Sutro & Co., Sanders Morris Harris and Stone & Youngberg, LLC.
Rabbi Samuels is originally from San Francisco. He comes to Bellingham with his wife Nicole, a registered nurse, and their two children, Eytan and Shoshana.
