Rabbi & Staff

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.  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 Masters of Theology Degree from Harvard Divinity School in 1996, and is currently a Doctoral Candidate at Spertus Institute, Chicago.  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 two full-length CD’s of original songs, “This One At Last”, and “Road Without Shoulders”.

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 is a Past-President of the North Shore Rabbinical and Cantorial Association, and also of the Marblehead Ministerial 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 Epstein Hillel Academy, and was among the founders of the MarbleheadCares Coalition.

Rabbi Meyer is also a founding Board Member of “Art a la Carte”, a charitable organization that delivers artwork to the hospital rooms of long-term cancer patients.  For ten years, he 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 North Shore Jewish Community Center.  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.