Rabbi Carl M. Perkins

Rabbi Carl M. Perkins has been the spiritual leader of Temple Aliyah since 1991. Born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, Rabbi Perkins earned his A.B., summa cum laude, at Haverford College. He taught for several years at the Commonwealth School in Boston as a Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellow. Before pursuing the rabbinate, he earned his J.D., cum laude, at Harvard Law School, and practiced law for several years in Boston. Rabbi Perkins was awarded a Wexner Fellowship to pursue rabbinical studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, where he was ordained and awarded a masters degree in Talmud and Rabbinics.

More recently, he participated in a three year program of study at the Shalom Hartman Institute, at the conclusion of which he was named a Senior Rabbinic Fellow at the Institute.  In 2009, he co-chaired a trip sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) that brought 19 Christian clergy from the Boston area to Israel.

Rabbi Perkins’ academic and professional interests include Talmud and Midrash, Jewish education, and keruv (outreach to interfaith families). He has taught and lectured widely in the Boston area and is currently an Adjunct Instructor in Rabbinics at the Hebrew College Rabbinical School. He has also taught Meah and Post-Meah classes throughout the Boston area, and hopes to teach a course in Jewish law at the Boston College Law School in 2012.

Rabbi Perkins has published articles in Conservative Judaism, Judaism, The American Rabbi, InterfaithFamily.com, and Sh’ma. He is the author of the revised edition of Embracing Judaism, an introduction to Judaism for prospective Jews by Choice, originally written by his late father-in-law, Rabbi Simcha Kling.

The Rabbi is also actively involved with many community-wide organizations. He has served on: the Rabbinical Assembly/United Synagogue Commission on Intermarriage; the strategic planning committees of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies and the Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston; the Boards of Trustees of the Leventhal-Sidman Jewish Community Center, the Jewish Community Relations Council, and Mayyim Hayyim Living Waters Community Mikveh and Education Center. He is a Past President of the Needham Clergy Association and is currently Vice President of the New England Rabbinical Assembly.

In 2003, Rabbi Perkins received the CJP Rabbinic Award at the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities in Jerusalem. He and his wife, Elana Kling Perkins, are the parents of Leora and Jeremy.

Read Rabbi Perkins' sermons here.  To contact Rabbi Perkins, please call the synagogue office (781-444-8522) or send an e-mail message.