Ben Freed
Rabbi Ben Freed will be the new spiritual leader of Keneseth Israel, the congregation has announced. He plans to begin his rabbinate here on July 1.
Freed’s hiring caps a 14-month process during which KI’s search committee “reviewed resumes from dozens of candidates, spent many hours in video conversations and interviews, spent hours in meetings discussing each candidate extensively,” according to a statement by the congregation. “In short, they conducted a world-class search, and they found a world-class rabbi for our community.”
Freed, who will graduate in May from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS), previously earned degrees in journalism and Middle Eastern studies from The University of Texas at Austin. He worked as a journalist in New York and Ann Arbor, Michigan, before choosing the rabbinate as a career.
He has had rabbinic internships at Adath Israel of Riverdale, New York; Binghamton University Hillel and Kehilat Ramot Zion in Jerusalem. He also participated in the JTS’ Gladstein Fellowship program, serving as the solo rabbi at Congregation Agudath Achim in Little Rock, Arkansas
He has worked at Camp Tel Yehudah in New York, and did chaplaincy service at Michigan Medicine in Ann Arbor.
Freed is engaged to Ariane Barrie-Stern. A drama graduate of The New School, where she focused on directing and playwriting, Barrie-Stern is passionate about bringing Jewish stories to the stage.
This is a developing story. Community will report more details as they become available.