Daniel Landau Lehmann

Rabbi Daniel Landau Lehmann was born and raised in Syracuse, New York. His father, of blessed memory, escaped Nazi Germany before World War II, while his mother grew up with deep family roots in the American Jewish community dating back to the early 1840s. Both of his parents were active leaders of their synagogues, Jewish federations, and other cultural and charitable institutions. As an adolescent, Daniel was passionately involved in music, theatre, and the Jewish community. He rose through the ranks of leadership in United Synagogue Youth, eventually serving as regional president. After graduating from public high school in 1980 he enrolled at Yeshivat Hamivtar in Jerusalem for a year of study. Led by Rabbi Chaim Brovender, Yeshivat Hamivtar opened up a new world of Jewish learning for Daniel. He decided to forgo his acceptance to the University of Chicago and enter Yeshiva University (YU) to continue the study of traditional Jewish texts.

At YU he first studied with the famed educator Rabbi Moshe Besdin and eventually progressed to attend the Talmud lectures of the great Rabbi Soloveitchik. Daniel immersed himself in the theological works of Rabbis S.R. Hirsch and J.B. Soloveitchik. Together with several professors and classmates, he struggled to discover new approaches to the synthesis of Torah and Western culture that forms the core of Modern Orthodoxy. His search for a more liberal, pluralistic Orthodoxy led him to study with Rabbi Irving Greenberg at the National Center for Learning and Leadership (CLAL) where Daniel served as a Rabbinic Intern and later as the Wexner Heritage Foundation Fellow. Rabbi Greenberg provided Daniel with a compelling theological and personal model of pluralism rooted in traditional Judaism.

During his last year in college, Daniel was chosen to coordinate a new college outreach program. Under his leadership, Kiruv developed an intellectually open and peer-led approach to engaging Jewish college students in serious Jewish study and experience. Toward the end of his rabbinical studies and graduate work in Jewish philosophy and history at Yeshiva University, Daniel followed his wife Lisa to Baltimore where she was entering medical school. He taught Jewish Studies at the Beth Tfiloh Community High School while simultaneously serving as an assistant rabbi for the Beth Tfiloh Congregation, a large, liberal Orthodox synagogue. At Beth Tfiloh, he received invaluable experience in the pulpit rabbinate and gained new skills as an educator and school administrator. After a sabbatical year at CLAL in New York, he returned to Baltimore in 1994 to assume the principalship of the Beth Tfiloh High School.

Two years later the opportunity to establish a pluralistic school in Boston enabled him to combine his passion for Jewish pluralism with his desire to create a new model for Jewish high school education. As founding headmaster of the New Jewish High School of Greater Boston (NJHS) and founding president of the North American Association of Jewish High Schools, he has helped generate the growing interest in pluralistic Jewish high schools. His vision for Jewish high school education focuses on rigorous textual study, religious pluralism, creativity in the arts, and social activism. The success of NJHS has served as a model for schools across the continent.

Daniel has maintained his commitment to adult Jewish learning through teaching for national and local adult educational programs, lecturing widely, and serving as the Scholar-in-Residence at the Boston Synagogue. He has also developed a serious interest in Jewish-Christian inter-religious learning. The proud father of Hillel, Elie, and Shira, Daniel is beginning doctoral work in Jewish Studies and Education at New York University in 2001.