RABBIS AND CANTOR | RABBI DAVID STERN

Rabbi David Stern

Rabbi David Stern is Senior Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, Dallas, Texas. He joined Temple Emanu-El in June of 1989, serving as Assistant and then Associate Rabbi until his appointment as Senior Rabbi in August, 1996.

Prior to coming to Temple Emanu-El, he served as an intern at Central Synagogue in New York City. Rabbi Stern attended Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion at its Jerusalem, New York, and Los Angeles campuses, receiving his rabbinical ordination in 1989, his M.A. in Jewish Education in 1988 and his M.A. in Hebrew Letters in 1986. He also received a B.A. with high honors in English from Dartmouth College, graduating Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1983. In 2002, Rabbi Stern studied for six months at Harvard Divinity School while on sabbatical. In 2005, he went on a study mission to the Darfuri refugee camps on the Chad-Sudan border.

Rabbi Stern chairs the Governance Task Force of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and is a member of the Reform Movement's Joint Commission on Social Action, where he has served as Vice Chair of the Commission and as Chair of the Task Force on Economic Justice. He serves on the Editorial Board of the CCAR Journal, and on the President’s Rabbinic Council of Hebrew Union College- Jewish Institute of Religion. Locally, Rabbi Stern is the immediate past chair of the Dallas Faith Communities Coalition, and the Rabbinic Association of Greater Dallas. Rabbi Stern serves on the Boards of Community Homes for Adults, Inc. and the Dallas Jewish Coalition for the Homeless. He is on the Advisory Board of the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center.

He is married to Rabbi Nancy Kasten and they have three children.