Rabbi Saul Perlmutter has worked as a Hebrew school teacher, the Youth Director of Temple Beth Sholom in Elkins Park, PA (the synagogue designed by Frank Lloyd Wright), summer camp counselor, and Executive Director of Hillel at UMass Amherst. He also manufactured mattresses as a summer job and my be the only rabbi who knows how to make a mattress - a skill, he quips, that only comes in handy when services  go on too long...

​

Saul's diverse educational training includes a BA in History from Brandeis University, a Master's degree in Religion from Temple University, and a Master of Social Work degree from Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University. His Rabbinical Ordination is from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. He spent an undergraduate year studying at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and a second year on sabbatical in Israel with his wife, Shoshana Zonderman, and their two children, Ariela and Noam. 

​

Saul is an avid bicycler and you may see him biking to Sons of Zion from his home in Florence, MA . His other hobbies include vegetable gardening, swimming, hiking, and occasionally strumming the guitar. He is an environmental activist and a volunteer at various social service agencies.

​

Under his leadership, UMass Hillel became the first and only six-time winner of National Hillel's Haber Award for programs of outstanding quality for the Jewish campus community. He was voted Best Local Spiritual Leader in the only year that the Valley Advocate included that category in their annual reader's poll. Services that Saul leads include lively, interactive Torah discussions that engage our minds and participatory singing that lifts our spirits.

.