Rabbi Jethro Berkman joins us as our new Community Educator in the summer of 2007.

Rabbi Berkman graduated from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia in June of 2007. In his last two years at RRC, he served as the Jewish advisor at Swarthmore College. Prior his studies at RRC, Jethro worked for several years for Seeds of Peace, a nonprofit, non-political organization that helps teenagers from regions of conflict learn peacemaking skills. He was a program coordinator for the organization in Jerusalem, and a counselor at its camp in Maine. Jethro also worked with special needs children as a teacher’s aide in the Boston Public Schools, and volunteered for the community service program City Year Boston.

At RRC Rabbi Berkman was a Wexner Graduate Fellow and was honored with the Ann Pinkenson prize in Rabbinics. Through a Dorot Fellowship in Israel, he studied at the Yakar Center for Tradition and Creativity. He has also studied at the Harvard Divinity School, the Hebrew University, the Pardes Institute, and the Conservative Yeshiva.

Rabbi Berkman is married to Rabbi Audrey Marcus-Berkman, who serves the Reconstructionist congregation Shir Hadash in Newton Centre. Together they have a son, Gavriel Matan, born in January 2006.