Our Faculty

"Unsurpassed," "inspiring," " supportive," and "respectful." In a recent survey of AJR, CA students and alumni, these were the most common terms used by respondents in describing their teachers.

The Academy has attracted an illustrious, committed and passionate faculty. They include renowned scholars who have taught at such prestigious institutions as Columbia, MIT, Stanford, Georgetown, UC Berkeley, Princeton, UCLA, UCLA Medical School, USC, Loyola Marymount, Ohio State, University of Judaism, Notre Dame, Hebrew Union College, Yeshiva University, Claremont, and Hebrew University; as well as outstanding congregational clergy who hold rabbinic ordinations and cantorial diplomas from Yeshiva University, Jewish Theological Seminary, University of Judaism, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, as well as smicha from ALEPH (the Jewish Renewal Movement). They are affiliated with some of the most prominent Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and Renewal synagogues in the Los Angeles area.

At AJR, CA, our faculty members have the opportunity to teach in a way that they've always wanted to teach, with the emphasis being on learning from "the heart" and making the Torah "alive" and relevant to our lives as Jews today. It is precisely because of our teachers that the Academy’s students are receiving the training necessary to be able to reach out to all Jews, including the unaffiliated and, in the process, to become effective spiritual leaders and spiritual counselors.