Rabbinic Advisors

Rabbi Norman Janis

Rabbi Norman Janis was one of the founding members of our congregation and has been our rabbinic advisor since 2000. He earned a PhD from the Harvard Linguistics Department with a dissertation on the cantillation of the Hebrew Bible, and he has served as Dean of Rabbinical Student Life at Hebrew College. He is a long time friend, student, and colleague of Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold, the founder of our congregation (see below).

As a chaplain at Harvard, Rabbi Janis's special areas of interest are:

• the perplexities of religious identity
• life-cycle events
• music and spirituality
• interfaith relations

More about Rabbi Janis...
Harvard University Gazette 9/28/00 interview with Norman Janis...
Rabbi Norman Janis' Rosh Hashanah talks: for 5769,"Are Are We Our Brothers’ and Sisters’ Keepers?", for 5770,"Remembering All The Forgotten Things."

Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold

Director of Harvard Hillel from 1958 until 1990, Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold founded our congregation in the late 1960s and served for many years as its rabbinic advisor. Upon retiring he became Director Emeritus of Harvard Hillel and has continued as an active member of our congregation. Rabbi Gold was raised in a traditional Orthodox home in Poland, where he studied in the Preparatory of the famous Yeshivat Chachmey Lublin. He received his rabbinical degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

Rabbi Gold's first book, Tradition and Contemporary Reality (1990), is a compilation of his sermons and talks. His recently published Jewish Life in Poland Before the Holochaust, recalls the vibrant and vital community in which he grew up.

Rabbi Gold's dvar Torah on the occasion of Israel's Yom HaAtzmaut (Independence Day) 5769 (2009): "The Challenge of Israel"