Rabbi David J. Fine, PhD

A Message from Rabbi David J. Fine, PhD

Welcome to Temple Israel and Jewish Community Center.  Here you will find a Jewish spiritual home in Ridgewood.  Our congregation is committed to the finest Jewish traditions of supporting the wider community, contributing to a better world, working together to build bridges with our neighbors, educating ourselves and our children in the traditions of Judaism and maintaining those traditions through prayer and Sabbath and festival observances.  We are a warm community where discussions continue around the tables after services, where friendships are made and where families are nurtured.

I invite you to visit our services and programs.  Our doors are always open to new faces.  Ours is an egalitarian Conservative synagogue where men and women participate equally, and all are welcome.  Friday nights we enjoy the melodies of the service led by Cantor Bromberg, and she and I take questions from the congregation.  On Shabbat morning I teach a chapter from the Mishnah.  We read the complete Torah parashah each week, led by a cadre of wonderful Torah readers from the congregation.  I generally lead a discussion on Shabbat morning when the congregation never fails to challenge me in different ways of understanding Torah.  Our services are participatory for all ages and our discussions are open to all views and perspectives.  Our various programs for families and individuals focus on holidays, social action, learning and community-building.  Our religious school, led by Rabbi Estelle Mills, offers a unique program of Hebrew language instruction, synagogue skills, Jewish traditions, cultural literacy and a broad based introduction to the rhythms and texture of Jewish life.

I would welcome the opportunity to speak more with you, either in person or via email (rabbi@synagogue.org).  Please be in touch, or come and visit and introduce yourself to me after services.

Biography

Rabbi David J. Fine, PhD, has served as rabbi of Temple Israel in Ridgewood since 2009.  Rabbi Fine is also an adjunct professor at the Abraham Geiger College (a Liberal rabbinical seminary) at the University of Potsdam in Germany, where he teaches Jewish law. Prior to assuming the pulpit in Ridgewood, he served as rabbi of Shaarei Tikvah in Scarsdale, NY and before that, as assistant to the executive vice president and secretary of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards at the Rabbinical Assembly, the international association of Conservative rabbis.

Rabbi Fine completed his doctorate in modern European history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and his rabbinical ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. He earned his bachelor’s degree with honors in history from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, with a year spent at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Rabbi Fine has published extensively in the areas of Jewish law, Conservative Judaism and German Jewish history. Jewish Integration in the German Army in the First World War (De Gruyter, Berlin, 2012) is based on his doctoral dissertation.

Rabbi Fine is active in community affairs, serving as chair of the Interfaith Religious Council of Ridgewood and as corresponding secretary of the New Jersey Rabbinical Assembly. He sits on the Jewish Community Relations Council and the boards of the Synagogue Leadership Initiative of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey and of the Bergen County High School of Jewish Studies. He is vice president of the North Jersey Board of Rabbis and of the Rabbinical Assembly. He lives in Ridgewood with his wife, Alla, and their sons, Laurence and Ariel.

During football season, for Rabbi Fine, few activities can compete with watching his beloved NY Jets, especially when he can catch them live at the Meadowlands. In the spring time, look for him at CitiField.  Rabbi Fine is a also a life-long self-described “Trekkie,” who has helped us all understand the subtle references to Talmudic law and lore embedded in the classic Star Trek television series. His wife, Alla, a Jewish émigré from the former Soviet Union, has introduced him to the pleasures of borscht, blinis and other Russian delicacies found in abundance in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach, a.k.a. “Little Odessa” neighborhood. Historical fiction is a favorite when Rabbi Fine is reading for pleasure. Check out his latest recommendation: Best-selling author Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy!