Lessons from an Unlikely Rabbi: Angela Buchdahl

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl’s journey of faith, identity, and belonging teaches us the value of embracing the strangers among us—and our inner strangers, as well. In our increasingly divided world, the struggle to find belonging often leads us to question our identities. A cantor as well as a rabbi, she brings the experience of coming to a strange land, and the joy of leading Central Synagogue in New York City, one of the largest Jewish congregations in North America, to the conversation—as well as to her memoir Heart of a Stranger: An Unlike­ly Rab­bi’s Sto­ry of Faith, Iden­ti­ty, and Belonging.

Rabbi Angela has been a trailblazer in the Jewish community since 1999, when she became the first East-Asian person to be invested as a cantor anywhere in the world. In 2001, she became the first East-Asian American to be ordained a rabbi in North America. She came to Central Synagogue in New York as senior cantor in 2006 and was appointed senior rabbi in 2014. Her book was an instant New York Times best-seller.

Newsweek and The Daily Beast have included Rabbi Angela Buchdahl in their lists of America's "Most Influential Rabbis."