Contact Rabbi Adler at 609-896-4977
Rabbi Benjamin Adler has been the spiritual leader of Adath Israel Congregation since 2014. He is passionate about being present and guiding individuals and families through the sweetness, sorrows, challenges, and opportunities of Jewish life. Drawing on the ancient wisdom of the tradition and the progressive values of modern Judaism, he has spent years building and sustaining warm, committed, and caring communities that support each member as they find their own unique spiritual path.
A graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City where he earned a master’s degree in Jewish Philosophy, Rabbi Adler also studied at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, he graduated cum laude from Columbia University with a BA in History.
Before entering rabbinical school, he worked for Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in New York City and spent time working in the digital media world. Rabbi Adler has served congregations in Rockaway, New Jersey, Pittsfield, Massachusetts and Greenport, New York.
He has served as president of the Board of Rabbis of Princeton Mercer Bucks, vice president of the New Jersey Rabbinical Assembly, on the board of trustees of the Gottesman RTW Academy, and on the Religious Pluralism committee of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest New Jersey. Rabbi Adler co-founded the Rockaway Interfaith Community, worked with the New Jersey Muslim-Jewish Solidarity Committee and Clergy of Lawrence Township, and helped plan a conference that trained Conservative rabbis in the skills of community organizing.
When he is not teaching, preaching, and leading his congregation, Rabbi Adler can probably be found following the San Antonio Spurs, reading, watching a good movie or TV show, fixing things around the house, or on the slopes in the winter. He is married to Lisa Adler and they have three children: Ronen, Jonah, and Miya.
Photo credit: Mike Schwartz
Click on the title of the articles below to read on Rabbi Adler’s website
- Better Than a Lawn Sign September 18, 2025Many presidential campaigns ago, my wife and I were having a conversation with another person when the topic of political endorsements came up. A group of rabbis had gotten together to endorse one of the candidates. I said that I would never endorse a candidate from the bima, and that even though I still have […]
- Quiet Win September 11, 2025In a week filled with unrelenting violence – the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Israel’s bombing of Hamas leaders in Doha that seems not to have succeeded, more Houthi attacks against Israel – there was one bit of bright news. Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton University PhD student working in Iraq on human rights, who had been […]
- Lost in Translation September 4, 2025Last week, I wrote about the great promise of artificial intelligence to aid in translation, thereby opening up avenues of study and exploration in languages we don’t speak. I asserted that I could simply upload an article in Hebrew and ChatGPT would translate it almost instantaneously. After I wrote the piece, I decided to try […]
- Important to Read August 28, 2025In one of my classes in rabbinical school, I was given the assignment of writing a paper on a primary source. The text I chose required reading a rather long academic article in Hebrew. At that point I hadn’t spent a year in Israel which meant my Hebrew was rather weak, so I skipped the […]
- Love and Boundaries August 22, 2025A decade ago, it was common to describe America as the best place Jews have ever lived in the diaspora. One of the proofs for this idea was often expressed in a way that put a positive spin on an issue of communal concern. “See, Americans love us Jews so much that they want to […]
- Stolen Beauty August 15, 2025On a recent trip to Europe, I visited many art museums and noticed a new addition to the explanation cards that accompany some of the works displayed: information about the provenance of the picture or sculpture and whether it was looted by the Nazis. Usually, I ignore the bottom of the card, which often states […]
- Something to Build On August 7, 2025As the Jewish world commemorated Tisha B’Av, the saddest day in the Jewish calendar commemorating the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem and other tragedies, the people of Israel were gripped by specter of hunger. Not their own hunger from fasting as part of the Tisha B’Av ritual, but the hunger in Gaza. As Israel […]
- Walking a Tightrope July 31, 2025This week I checked my work voicemail to find a message left by someone who said he was a Christian minister. For 2 minutes and 37 seconds he expressed his anger over Israel’s actions in Gaza. “Why are you killing these people,” he asked, as if I, a rabbi in suburban New Jersey, was responsible […]
- Lost in Foundation July 24, 2025On my recent vacation I read The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, by Stephen Greenblatt, a 2011 account of how in 1417 the Italian humanist Poggio Bracciolini found in a monastery a manuscript of the ancient poem On the Nature of Things by the Latin author Lucretius. As the title suggests, Greenblatt argues that […]
- Living the Dream June 26, 2025The ceasefire between Israel and Iran seems to be holding after more than a week of war. Israelis can breathe a sigh of relief as they emerge from safe rooms and bomb shelter amid widespread destruction and the death of over two dozen people during the Iranian missile attacks. In the midst of uncertainty for […]