Rabbi Sharon Brous is a leading voice in reanimating religious life in America, working to develop a spiritual roadmap for a soulful, justice-driven, multi-faith ethos in Los Angeles and around the country. Brous is the senior and founding rabbi of IKAR, a Jewish community that launched in 2004 to reinvigorate Jewish practice and inspire people of faith to reclaim a moral and prophetic voice. IKAR quickly became one of the fastest growing and most influential Jewish congregations in the country, and is credited with sparking a rethinking of religious life in a time of unprecedented disaffection and declining affiliation. Brous’s 2016 TED talk, “Reclaiming Religion,” has been viewed by more than 1.4 million people and translated into 23 languages. In 2013, she blessed President Obama and Vice President Biden at the Inaugural National Prayer Service, and returned in 2021 to bless President Biden and Vice President Harris, and then to lead the White House Passover Seder that spring. Brous spoke at the Women’s March in Washington, DC in 2017 and at the opening of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice the following year. She was named #1 on the Newsweek/The Daily Beast list of the most influential Rabbis in America, and has been recognized by The Forward and the Jerusalem Post as one of the fifty most influential Jews. In 2021 she was one of CAP’s 21 Faith Leaders to Watch, and she was featured on the cover of TIME magazine in a 2018 tribute to Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms. Brous is in the inaugural cohort of Auburn Seminary‘s Senior Fellows program, which unites top faith leaders working on the frontlines for justice. She also sits on the faculty of the Shalom Hartman Institute-North America and REBOOT, and serves on the International Council of the New Israel Fund and the national steering committee for the Poor People’s Campaign. She is a graduate of Columbia University, was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary, and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and three children.
