Scholar's Shabbat with Rabbi David Saperstein
Friday, January 12, 2018
6:15 pm Kabbalat Shabbat Service; 7:15 pm Dinner; 8:00 pm Lecture
We are pleased to welcome Rabbi David Saperstein, Director Emeritus Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, for our Scholar's Shabbat at Temple Isaiah. He will speak briefly during the worship services and speak after dinner on “Being God’s Hands: Continuing the Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.”
Designated by Newsweek magazine as the most influential rabbi in America and by the Washington Post as the “quintessential religious lobbyist on Capitol Hill,” Rabbi Saperstein, for decades, directed the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. For over two years (through January 2017), Rabbi Saperstein served our nation as the U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, carrying out his responsibilities as the country’s chief diplomat on religious freedom issues. Also an attorney, he taught seminars on Church–State law and Jewish Law for 35 years at Georgetown University Law Center.
During his career, Rabbi Saperstein has served as the chair or co-chair of several national interreligious coalitions including the Coalition to Preserve Religious Liberty and served on the boards or executive committees of numerous national organizations including the NAACP, People for The American Way, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the National Religious Partnership on the Environment and the World Faith Development Dialogue. He currently serves as a Senior Fellow at both the Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, and its School of Foreign Service's Center for Jewish Civilization, as well as the Senior Advisor for Strategy and Policy for the Union for Reform Judaism.
Rabbi Saperstein is married to Ellen Weiss, an award-winning journalist and has two sons, Daniel and Ari.
