I was born in Oakland and grew up in the Bay Area. After graduating from UC Berkeley, I moved to New York, where I was ordained as a rabbi at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1985. I promptly moved back to San Francisco and lived there until moving to Berkeley in 2011. I received my PhD from the Graduate Theological Union in 1999. In 2001, I became a Senior Rabbinic Fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 2010.

Over my career, I have worked with people of all ages in a variety of settings - synagogues in cities and rural towns, college campuses, long term care facilities, and community centers, and I serve as a chaplain to Bay Area first responders. I am a member in good standing, past national board member and past regional president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and a member of the Northern California Board of Rabbis.

My years during the AIDS epidemic as rabbi of Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ synagogue, helped me learn how to be with people facing loss and illness, disappointment and death - and how to sustain hope and faith while living through challenges and turmoil. My long affiliation with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality has deepened my capacity to bring the resources and practices of the Jewish spiritual tradition to spiritual guidance and counseling.

When I retired as the Senior Rabbi of Berkeley’s Congregation Beth El in 2021, after a long and fulfilling career as a congregational rabbi, my quest to continue to find meaning and purpose in my own life led me to this new stage in my rabbinate. It is an honor to accompany others in their quests for meaning and to be present with them at important times in their life journeys.

I would welcome the opportunity to hear your story.