Dan grew up wanting to either be a teacher or else the next Johnny Carson. He went to Northwestern as a Radio-TV-Film major. But after a falteringly short career in broadcasting realized that education was his true calling. Dan started as a teacher and moved into school administration culminating in becoming president of a small two-year postsecondary School outside Philadelphia for nearly two decades.
While in Philadelphia, he attended congregation Mishkan Shalom and reconnected to a progressive Judaism he could finally relate to. When his wife Laura and he decided to move to Berkeley to be close to family, people at Mishkan told them they “absolutely must attend Kehilla.” They’ve been members for about a decade now. Dan has served on Kehilla’s Finance Committee for several years, recently shepherding the congregation’s mortgage refinance as well as its participation in the Payroll Protection Program which helped Kehilla weather the storm of the pandemic. Dan is active with Kehilla’s Immigration Committee as well where he has served on 4 accompaniment teams assisting immigrants as they try to build their lives in America.
Outside of Kehilla, he volunteers with Consider the Homeless where every few weeks Laura and he make enough soup to feed about 120 hungry people. He continues his “seemingly-still-fledgling-even-after-5-years effort” to learn Spanish, and spends time in a community garden.