Daniel Gordis (born 1959) is President of the Shalem Foundation and Senior Vice President and Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center in Israel. Gordis was the founding dean of the Ziegler Rabbinical School, the first rabbinical college on the West Coast of the United States.
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Daniel Gordis was born on July 5, 1959, in New York City. Gordis received his B.A. from Columbia University (magna cum laude), a master's degree and rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California.[1] He immigrated to Israel in 1998. From 1998-2007, he worked at the Mandel Foundation and the Mandel Leadership Institute in Jerusalem. He joined the Shalem Center in 2007 and was appointed President of the Shalem Foundation in 2011.
Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic has written, "If you asked me, 'of all the people you know, who cares the most about the physical, moral and spiritual health of Israel?' I would put the commentator and scholar Daniel Gordis at the top of the list."[2]
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. He has written for The New York Times, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, Moment, Tikkun, and Conservative Judaism. His book, Saving Israel: How the Jewish State Can Win a War That May Never End was published by Wiley in March 2009 and won the 2009 National Jewish Book Award under the Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice category.[3]
Gordis has recently completed a volume in 19th and 20th century Orthodox responsa on conversion, co-authored with Dr. David Ellenson of the Hebrew Union College, which will be published by Stanford University Press. Another book on how Israel is the model of the sort of ethnic nation-state that can preserve human freedom is now being written, and will be published by Wiley in 2012.
Gordis participated in the documentary film Indestructible about a man suffering from ALS disease, in which he discussed theological explanations for human suffering.[4][5]