Rabbi Scott Shafrin will assume the role of executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council on April 15. He currently serves as JCRC’s deputy director and is the Lee & Milford Bohm Director of Social Justice, a position he began last July.
“We are thrilled that after a national search, we were able to look inside our organization to find the perfect person to lead JCRC into the future,” said JCRC Board Chair Joel Iskiwitch. “Scott’s passion for building meaningful relationships, his listening skills, and his ability to organize and mobilize others are what we need now to support the work of the Jewish community in fighting antisemitism and providing nuanced conversations about Israel.”
As JCRC’s deputy director, Shafrin represents JCRC in a variety of interfaith and intergroup spaces and serves as a member of the Interfaith Partnership’s Clergy Cabinet. He also provides oversight to Student to Student, a program of the Newmark Institute for Human Relations. In his new role, Shafrin will continue representing the Jewish community’s interests in Jefferson City by advocating for JCRC policy priorities.
“JCRC provides a unique space to bring not only the Jewish community together in dialogue, but to connect us in deep and meaningful ways to the entire St. Louis region,” said Shafrin. “I am deeply honored to be continuing the work of the inspirational leaders before me who have taken new steps to create a more just and secure St. Louis over the past 85 years.”
Shafrin succeeds Maharat Rori Picker Neiss, who left the position that she had held for eight years in December, to become senior vice president for community relations at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Since Jan. 1, Cheryl Adelstein has served as JCRC’s interim executive director and will stay with JCRC for the next several months to assist in the leadership transition.
Prior to coming to JCRC, Shafrin served as the associate rabbi and religious school director at Kol Rinah. Additionally, he has worked as a social justice organizer in Boston, Los Angeles and Atlanta, and served as the rabbi in residence at the Epstein School in Atlanta.
He was ordained from the American Jewish University’s Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles in 2013, where he also received a master’s degree in education.
Shafrin is married to Rabbi Jessica Shafrin, manager of pastoral care for three SSM Health hospitals and a passionate teacher of Torah. They have two children, Amitai and Nadav.
