Rabbi and Leadership

Rabbi Eva Cohen speaking into a microphone at a podium during an indoor Or Emet gathering. She is wearing a black sleeveless dress and looking toward a seated audience of diverse community members. The setting is a rustic room with wooden walls and large open doors leading to a green outdoor space.

Rabbi Eva at Eli’s Bar Mitzvah

Rabbi Eva Cohen

Rabbi Eva Cohen is the first Humanistic rabbi in Minnesota. She earned her M.A. in Classical and Near Eastern Studies (focusing on Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East) from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities in 2020 and received rabbinic ordination from the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism (IISHJ) in 2024.

Rabbi Eva grew up in St. Paul, and her family has been involved with Or Emet since she was eight years old. She graduated from St. Paul Central High School, earned a B.A. in anthropology and visual art from Brown University in Rhode Island, and returned to the Twin Cities after college to serve as an AmeriCorps VISTA. Over the next decade, she worked as an artist and in a variety of nonprofit roles – including as a teacher in Or Emet’s Jewish Cultural Sunday School (JCSS) and for five years as the school’s director. While pursuing her master’s degree and attending rabbinical school, she became Or Emet’s ritual leader.

Rabbi Eva has been featured as a T’ruah (M)oral Torah commentator as well as in Moment Magazine, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, TC Jewfolk, American Jewish World, and other publications.

Rabbi Eva

Rabbi Eva extinguishing Havdalah candle

Along with leading Or Emet’s Shabbat and holiday services, officiating life cycle ceremonies, providing pastoral care, and representing Or Emet and Humanistic Judaism in the broader community, including through social justice advocacy, Rabbi Eva teaches in and leads the congregation’s B Mitzvah Program. As a practicing artist, she welcomes opportunities to integrate creativity and the arts into Humanistic Jewish practice.

Rabbi Eva, her husband, Jack, and their young daughter live in Minneapolis.

Executive Committee

Jeff Pipes

President

Jeff is the current President of Or Emet. He has served as Vice President and as chair and member of numerous committees. Upon returning to Minnesota, he found Or Emet and the Society for Humanistic Judaism and fell in love with the community and its social justice ideals. He attended Carleton College and the University of Nebraska earning degrees in Geology and Hydrogeology along with a Law Degree. He previously worked as an environmental engineer and as an environmental and employment attorney. He and his wife, Florence, returned to Minnesota after 20 years as a winemaker and viticulturalist for their own vineyard and winery in Paso Robles, California. They farmed their vineyard organically and sustainably, even using a team of draft horses (Betty & Bobby). Jeff served as the the VP of his California Resource Conservation District for more than a dozen years. They have grown daughters (an OB/Gyn and a Ph.D. Candidate in Soil Science). Jeff and Florence live on a small farm near Northfield where they are busy gardeners and part-time farmers.

Sarah Berman-Young

Vice President

Sarah grew up in St. Paul. She is Or Emet’s long-time song leader and has led holiday and ceremonial committees for many years. She is also the Hebrew and Music teacher for Or Emet’s Jewish Cultural Sunday School (JCSS). She earned an undergraduate degree from Macalester College in Psychology and both an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in Educational Psychology. She is a School Psychologist and MTSS Specialist for the North St. Paul school district. Sarah lives in St. Paul and has two children who are both active in the JCSS in music and as a teacher’s aide.

Sergei Rakhmanov

Treasurer

Sergei works as a Program Manager in the IT Services industry. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Cooper Union in NYC.

Sergei and his wife, Sarah, and their two children live in St. Paul.

Megan Brakob Narvey

At-Large

Megan and her husband, Grant, were married by Rabbi Eva Cohen in 2023! Originally from Manitoba, she attended Carleton College. She is a Conservator at Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul specializing in outreach and communication. Her background is in object conservation, but her passion is in sharing conservation knowledge and expertise more broadly so that more people can take care of the things that matter to them. She is also an advocate for emergency preparedness and response for cultural heritage.

Jewish Cultural Sunday School Director

Molly Phipps

Molly has served as the Jewish Cultural Sunday School (JCSS) School Director for four years. She oversees all school operations and communications, directs a staff of four teachers and three classroom aides, and helps to plan school holiday celebrations. She is also an ex officio member of the executive committee.

Molly’s work experience has included her passion for food, people and the natural environment. Molly attended Brown University obtaining a BS degree in Geology-Biology and she earned a Ph.D. in Science Education and Oceanography from Oregon State University. She began her role as a Jewish educator in her childhood temple’s religious school, first as an aide in high school and then as the sixth grade teacher beginning in college. She loves cooking and baking foods of all kinds, but especially Jewish foods. She and her husband, Ralph, live in St. Paul with their two children.

A portrait of Molly, a member of the Or Emet leadership team. She is a woman with shoulder-length wavy brown hair and glasses, wearing a white top and decorative gold earrings, smiling warmly against a dark red background.

Founder and Madrikh

Dr. Harold Londer, z”l

The Or Emet congregation was founded in the early 1980s in Minneapolis by Dr. Harold Londer and Dr. Larry Garfin. Dr. Londer, a Minneapolis oncologist, had heard a lecture on Humanistic Judaism at the First Unitarian Society in Minneapolis by Humanistic Judaism’s founder, Rabbi Sherwin Wine. Londer saw Humanistic Judaism as the movement that could provide Jewish community for secular Jews and chose to establish a Humanistic Jewish congregation in Minnesota. Or Emet began when Londer and Garfin gathered like-minded secular Jewish friends to meet in various homes. Londer was ordained as a Madrikh, a recognized leader in the Humanistic Jewish movement with all the rights and responsibilities of clergy, by the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism (IISHJ) in 2007. For many years, Dr. Londer conducted life-cycle ceremonies such as baby namings, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs (now called “B Mitzvahs” by SHJ), weddings, and funerals. Inspired by Dr. Londer, Eva Cohen has served as the congregation’s ritual leader since Londer’s retirement, becoming Or Emet’s first ordained rabbi in 2024.

Harold Londer