Clergy and Staff
Rabbi Darryl Crystal
dcrystal@emanu-el.org
Rabbi Crystal is entering his 20th year as an Interim Rabbi. He will work with our congregation for one year. Temple Emanu-El will be the 18th congregation he has served. The congregations span the country from California to Massachusetts, Illinois to Texas, and Georgia. Prior to his work as an Interim Rabbi, he served North Shore Synagogue, in New York for 18 years.
Rabbi Crystal will lead services, teach, provide pastoral care, officiate at life-cycle events, and fulfill all of responsibilities of the Senior Rabbi. He looks forward to meeting the members of Temple Emanu-El and participating in all aspects of synagogue life.
As an Interim Rabbi, Rabbi Crystal will support and provide resources for Temple Emanu-El during the transition year. The work of an Interim Rabbi includes helping congregations affirm their traditions, explore new programs, envision the future, facilitate conversations about their relationship and the contributions of the previous Rabbi, and prepare to have a successful transition with the new Senior Rabbi.
Pastoral care is a foundation of Rabbi Crystal’s work. He trained as a Chaplain at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the Washington Hospital Center.
Rabbi Crystal was an Eisendrath Intern at the Religious Action Center. He has worked on issues including LGBTQAI+ equality, reproductive rights, immigration reform, and the abolition of torture. He has worked with interfaith communities throughout the country.
Rabbi Crystal is committed to Jewish learning. He studied at the PARDES Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem in 2003-04. He was one of the first rabbis to train with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, which teaches rabbis, cantors, and educators about spirituality through study of classic texts of mysticism and Jewish meditation.
Jaime Meyers
Executive Director
jmeyers@emanu-el.org
Jon Nelson
Music Director
temple@emanu-el.org
Rabbi Allison Peiser
Temple Educator
apeiser@emanu-el.org
Rabbi Emeritus
Rabbi David J. Meyer
djm@emanu-el.org
Rabbi David J. Meyer was called to the pulpit of Temple Emanu-El, Marblehead in the fall of 1992. Following thirty-one years leading the congregation, he retired as Rabbi Emeritus in July, 2023.
Ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1986, Rabbi Meyer served for six years as the Associate Rabbi of the historic Congregation Sherith Israel in San Francisco, California. He later received his Master of Theology Degree from Harvard Divinity School in 1996. In May 2011, Rabbi Meyer was awarded the Doctor of Divinity (honoris causa) from HUC-JIR.
Rabbi Meyer's sermons and articles have appeared regularly in magazines and rabbinic journals, including The Jewish Spectator, Moment, The American Rabbi, The CCAR Journal, and the American Jewish Archives Journal. He is the author of an acclaimed textbook on Jewish ethics, The Rabbinic Driving Manual: A Jewish Guide to Driver’s Education.
Well-known in the field of contemporary Jewish folk music, he spent more than a decade as Music Director at the American Jewish University’s Brandeis-Bardin Campus in Southern California. Recently, he has teamed with Jon Nelson to release three full-length albums of original songs, “This One At Last”, “Road Without Shoulders”, and “A Song About Shoes”.
In addition to his pulpit and pastoral duties, Rabbi Meyer is active in a wide variety of community activities and organizations on Boston's North Shore. He served for four years as Convener of the Marblehead Ministerial Association and is also a Past-President of the North Shore Rabbinical and Cantorial Association. In addition, Rabbi Meyer has served as a member of the Essex County Anti-Crime Council, on the Board of the Jewish Federation of the North Shore, and of the Epstein Hillel School, and was among the founders of the MarbleheadCares Coalition.
For ten years, Rabbi Meyer was a member and captain of the Boston Children’s Hospital “Miles for Miracles” Marathon Team. He sits on the national U.J.C. Rabbinic Cabinet, and is a recipient of the prestigious Community Rabbinic Leadership Award. In 2006, Rabbi Meyer received the Leonard P. Zakim Humanitarian Award from the Anti-Defamation League, in recognition of his work “building bridges” of understanding between differing faith communities. In 2012, he received the Samuel S. Stahl Community Service Award from the Jewish Community Center of the North Shore. In 2014 he received the Annual Rabbinic Leadership Award from Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) in Boston. In 2017 he received the Israel Unity Award from the State of Israel Bonds. And just prior to retirement, Rabbi Meyer received special commendation from the Town of Marblehead and the Marblehead Police Department in recognition of his years of service to the wider community.