Daniel Gordis

The book won the 2008 National Jewish Book Award under the Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice category.

While living in Los Angeles, Gordis worked at the University of Judaism for almost fifteen years, and was the founding Dean of its Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, the first rabbinical college on the West Coast of the United States. He and his family moved to Israel in 1998. In 2007, after nine years as vice president of the Mandel Foundation and director of its Leadership Institute, Gordis joined the Shalem Center to join the team founding Israel's first liberal arts college.

Daniel Gordis (born 1959) is an American-born Israeli author and speaker. He is Senior Vice President and Koret Distinguished Fellow at Shalem College in Jerusalem, where he is also Chair of the Core Curriculum. The author of a dozen books on Judaism and Israel, and twice awarded the National Jewish Book Award (including Book of the Year for his history of Israel), he was once recognized as a leading Conservative rabbi, but is no longer publicly associated with that movement. Slightly left of center when he arrived in Israel in 1998, his writings suggest a gradual move to the right. Most people now consider him a moderate conservative.

Daniel Gordis was born on July 5, 1959, in New York City, but was raised in Baltimore where he attended public high school. He studied Political Science at Columbia University, and received a master's degree and rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Gordis and his wife moved to California in 1984, and while there, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. He immigrated to Israel in 1998. From 1998 to 2007, he worked at the Mandel Foundation and the Mandel Leadership Institute in Jerusalem. He joined the Shalem Center in 2007 as Senior Vice President and Koret Distinguished Fellow at Shalem College.