Executive Director

Rabbi Donna Berman is the Executive Director of the Charter Oak Cultural Center.  She holds a Ph.D. in Religion and Social Ethics from Drew University.  In her dissertation entitled, Nashiut Ethics:  The Articulation of a Jewish Feminist Ethics of Safe-Keeping, Rabbi Berman developed a method for doing Jewish feminist ethics.  At the core of her theology is a commitment to the Jewish tradition of tikkun olam, repairing the world through acts of justice.  This is a commitment that she brings to her work at Charter Oak.

Rabbi Berman is rabbi emerita of Port Jewish Center in Port Washington, New York, was the founder and co-chair of The South Bronx—Port Washington Community Partnership, a mutually beneficial collaboration between one of the poorest communities in the nation and one of the wealthiest.  She has taught at Molloy College in New York, Wesleyan University and Hartford Seminary in Connecticut and has served as the Jewish chaplain at Mount Holyoke College in Hadley, Massachussetts.  Rabbi Berman is the co-editor of a special edition of The Journal of Reform Judaism and is the author of numerous articles.  She recently co-edited and wrote the foreword for, The Coming of Lilith:  Essays on Feminism, Judaism, and Sexual Ethics, 1973-2003 by Judith Plaskow which was published in July, 2005.  In 2006, Rabbi Berman received Leadership Greater Hartford’s Polaris Award in arts and culture and in the spring of 2007 she was honored by American Friends Service Committee for her work in social justice.  In 2008, Donna was named one of the fifty most influential people in Hartford by Hartford Magazine.