rabbi@synagogue.org
201-444-9320 Ext. 208
Rabbi David J. Fine, PhD, has served as rabbi of Temple Israel in Ridgewood since 2009. Rabbi Fine is also an adjunct professor of Jewish law at the Abraham Geiger and Zacharias Frankel Colleges (a Reform and Conservative rabbinical seminary program) at the University of Potsdam in Germany, and an adjunct associate professor at the Academy for Jewish Religion in Yonkers, NY, where he teaches history. Prior to assuming the pulpit in Ridgewood, he served as rabbi of Shaarei Tikvah in Scarsdale, NY, and before that, as Jewish chaplain at Wesleyan University and as assistant to the executive vice president at the Rabbinical Assembly, the international association of Conservative rabbis.
A native of Queens NY, 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, Connecticut, with a year spent at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Rabbi Fine has published extensively in the areas of Jewish law, Conservative Judaism, and German Jewish history. In Passionate Centrism: One Rabbi’s Judaism (2016), Rabbi Fine presents his interpretation of Judaism along with a collection of essays and studies. His Jewish Integration in the German Army in the First World War (2012) is based on his doctoral dissertation. He is a regular op-ed contributor to the North Jersey Jewish Standard.
Rabbi Fine is active in community affairs. He volunteers as a chaplain for the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office. Rabbi Fine is the executive director of the Bergen County High School of Jewish Studies. He serves the international Rabbinical Assembly as a member of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards where he contributes Jewish legal opinions (halakhic responsa) on contemporary questions of Jewish law. He served as president of the Ridgewood Interfaith Clergy Council, the North Jersey Board of Rabbis, and the New Jersey Rabbinical Assembly.
Rabbi Fine lives in Ridgewood with his wife, Alla, and their sons, Laurence and Ariel.