Sam Yolen is the new rabbi at the Kesher Israel Congregation in West Chester. Before that, he led Congregation Beth Israel in Lebanon for five years.
But before all of that, he was a college dropout. A refugee from a finance major that he lost faith in after The Great Recession. A bum on his parents’ couch who ate ice cream at all hours of the day.
Then his mother went to a local farmers’ market, started talking to the guy who ran the place and got her son a job on the farm. It started his unlikely journey to the rabbinate.
Yolen told his story on The Jewish Exponent Podcast.
