Rabbi Sarah Fort, Associate Rabbi
Rabbi Sarah Fort graduated from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, California in 2017. She holds a BA in Government and International Politics from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. A native of the DC area, Rabbi Fort spent years working in Jewish formal and informal education as a youth group advisor, religious school teacher, Hillel president, and assistant preschool teacher.
While in rabbinical school, Rabbi Fort was a Leffell Israel Fellow with AIPAC for two years and a fellow with NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change. In 2017, she was awarded the Jacob Pressman Award in Homiletics from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies. Combining her love of Judaism and her love of travel, she had the opportunity to go to Birobidzhan, Russia to serve as camp rabbi at the JDC Bar/Bat Mitzvah Family Camp in 2012. Following her ordination in 2017, Rabbi Fort began working as the assistant and then associate rabbi at Congregation Beth Yeshurun in Houston, Texas.
Rabbi Fort focuses her rabbinate on asking and trying to answer the question “Who’s not in the tent?” In doing so, she tries to find more ways for more Jews to be a part of Jewish communal life who have traditionally found themselves, at times, “outside the tent:” the disabled community, LGBTQ+, Jews-by-Choice, the recovery community, those dealing with mental health issues, and more. She serves on both the Reproductive Rights and Strengthening Democracy Subcommittees of the Rabbinical Assembly. Rabbi Fort is currently the Rabbinic Trustee for the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston Board of Trustees and serves on the Advisory Board for Matan.
In her free time (ha!), Rabbi Fort enjoys binging on TV shows, cooking, and exploring Texas and the world with her son David.
