Rabbi Caryn Aviv (she/her/hers) serves as Rabbinic and Program Director at Judaism Your Way, as well as Director of Studies at ALEPH. Caryn loves to create and facilitate transformative Jewish experiences that spark joy and meaning for Jews and loved ones. Prior to becoming a rabbi in 2020, Caryn earned a PhD in sociology from Loyola University Chicago in 2002. She taught, mentored students, and published research in Jewish Studies and sociology at University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Denver from 2003-2013 before entering the ALEPH Ordination Program. Caryn loves spending time with her family, hiking in the Rocky Mountains, singing with Denver Women’s Chorus, hugging trees as a spiritual practice, organizing for justice, and making art.

We are grateful to Rabbi Angela Buchdahl for speaking to us about her new book, Heart of a Stranger. Please enjoy the conversation recording below.

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl is a pioneering Reform rabbi and cantor and one of the most influential Jewish leaders in America today. She became the first Asian American to be ordained as both a cantor and a rabbi in North America when she was invested as a cantor in 1999 and ordained in 2001 by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. As Senior Rabbi of Central Synagogue, she is nationally recognized for innovative worship that reaches large in-person congregations and a global livestream audience. She has been featured on the Today Show, NPR, and PBS, and was named one of Newsweek’s “America’s 50 Most Influential Rabbis.”

Her memoir, Heart of a Stranger, released in October 2025, became an instant New York Times bestseller. In it, she weaves personal narrative and Jewish teaching to explore identity, belonging, and the moral call to encounter the stranger with courage and compassion in a divided world.