Yosef Goldman
Brooklyn, NY
Dahlia Blossom Cohort 2025
About Yosef
Rabbi Yosef Goldman is a leading facilitator, educator, and practitioner of Jewish communal music. He partners with congregations and clergy, supporting them in cultivating vibrant prayer and fostering musical-spiritual creativity. His work is shaped by his extensive rabbinic experience in chaplaincy, spiritual counseling, education, and senior congregational leadership. As a composer, performer, and ritual artist, Yosef blends ancient devotional music from his Mizrahi and Ashkenazi heritage with contemporary American and Israeli Jewish traditions to inspire healing, connection, and social change. He has released two acclaimed albums—Open My Heart (2019) and Abitah (2023)—through Rising Song Records, with his music sung in communities and camps across the U.S. and Israel. A sought-after vocalist and collaborator, Yosef has contributed to dozens of albums spanning the Jewish music landscape, including as a longtime member of the Hadar Ensemble, led by Joey Weisenberg.
In 2018-19, Yosef was selected for the Kimmel Center’s Jazz Residency alongside klezmer trombonist Dan Blacksberg. In 2024 he was featured in the sold-out Jewish Heritage Month concert at the Kennedy Center in DC, co-presented by the Weitzman Museum of American History and The Recording Academy, of which he is a voting member.
Yosef is known as a dynamic and inspiring prayer leader. His unique style is informed by a diverse background and training. Yosef received rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary and was awarded a Master of Sacred Music degree. He has led prayer in communities of all Jewish movements from Orthodox to Jewish Renewal, including some of the most innovative and spiritually vibrant communities in the US and Israel, from the Carlebach Shul to Romemu in New York, The Kitchen in San Francisco, Nava Tehila and Beit Tefila Yisraeli in Israel, and B’nai Jeshurun in Manhattan, where Yosef served as their first cantorial intern. Most recently, he has served as a High Holiday cantor at Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles. In addition to weekend residencies around the country, Yosef currently serves as year-long Artist-in-Residence at Temple Israel Center in White Plains, NY and Congregation Shomrei Torah, in Montclair, NY.
Since its inception, Yosef has served as senior advisor to Hadar’s Rising Song Institute, which nurtures Jewish spiritual life through song. His latest project, Kedmah, explores Mizrahi piyyut and sacred music, using ancient poetry and song to elevate the spiritual and artistic expression of Jews from Arab lands. Their debut album—Simu Lev—was released on Rising Song Records in the spring of 2024 to great acclaim. Yosef lives in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife, Rabbi Annie Lewis, and their two children, where they continue to create spaces for healing, connection, and creativity in their local and broader Jewish communities.