2025 Covenant Award Recipient
Rabbi Dianne Cohler-Esses
2025 Covenant Award Recipient
Rabbi Dianne Cohler-Esses
Rabbi and Director of Lifelong Learning, Romemu,
New York, NY
Rabbi Dianne Cohler-Esses has served as Director of Lifelong Learning at Romemu, a Renewal congregation in New York, New York, since 2012. In this role, Cohler-Esses is responsible for the visioning, design, and implementation of all adult education offerings. She serves as Romemu’s lead educator and teaches numerous classes, including the congregation’s signature Open Book program—a hybrid in-person and virtual weekly class on the parashah held before morning services and attended regularly by 80 participants from around the world.
Rabbi Cohler-Esses’ work as an adult educator also extends well beyond Romemu. She co-teaches the Artists’ Beit Midrash Skirball Academy class at The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Cultural Center and teaches Torah to lay leaders through the UJA-Federation of New York. She is also an adjunct faculty member at the Academy for Jewish Religion and she has been a bold leader in creating chesed programs that inform and inspire the community on topics including Judaism and disabilities and issues relevant to Jewish women.
“Dianne’s life journey, from the traditional Syrian community in which she was raised, to her own path as a seeker, to her powerful leadership as a rabbi and Jewish educator, has only been possible because of her unwavering commitment to intellectual, emotional, and spiritual honesty,” said Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, President of Hebrew College, who nominated Cohler-Esses for the Award.
“Such honesty requires quiet courage to ask hard questions of oneself and others. As an educator and as a communal leader, Dianne persistently creates space for asking honest questions. Any place where Dianne teaches Torah vibrates with questions—and with life.”
“I was in Israel on a rabbinic mission, immersed in issues of national trauma, war and peace, when I got the call about the Covenant Award,” said Cohler-Esses.
“To receive this tremendous honor while in Israel, witnessing so much heartbreak, was hard to reconcile. But Torah is a powerful gift, and I am starting to realize that even in the face of overwhelming challenges for our people and our planet, being recognized as a teacher of Torah matters now, as much as it ever did. My heart overflows with gratitude.”
