Rabbi Jonah Pesner
Director, Just Congregations - Union for Reform Judaism - Boston, MA
Rabbi Pesner is the founding Director of Union for Reform Judaism’s “Just Congregations” initiative, a social action program fostering faith-based community organizing to address root causes of injustice and counter the religious right. He is also co-chairman of the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization’s (GBIO) Affordable Care Today! Campaign, which was recognized for its key role in the recent Massachusetts healthcare debate that led to passage of a bill requiring heath insurance for nearly all state residents. Rabbi Pesner also advises Temple Israel in Boston on their social justice work, and serves on the board of the Jewish Labor Committee and the Jewish Memorial Hospital in Roxbury, MA.
Areas of Expertise:
• Faith-based community organizing
• Health care
• Labor
• Education
• Federal Marriage Ammendment
Recent articles and interviews:
• Boston Globe: Interfaith leaders invoke morality in healthcare debate
• Forward: Rabbinical Students Focus on Activism "All people of faith who care about everybody having a decent home to live in — everybody having a living wage, access to public education, health care — have seen the language of faith co-opted by those who claim to have a monopoly of faith on certain social issues," said Rabbi Jonah Pesner. "I think there is a hunger among people... to take back the church or synagogue as an engine for social change in this country."
Rabbi Jonah Pesner has expertise in the following areas. To find members of the Voicing Faith Media Bureau with similar backgrounds, click the relevant links below:
