SAN DIEGO (Press Release)– Rabbi Shai Cherry, Ph.D., has been engaged as the new Director of the Abraham Ratner Torah School at Tifereth Israel Synagogue.
Rabbi Cherry, or Rav Shai as he likes to be called, holds a doctorate in Jewish Thought and Theology from Brandeis University and was subsequently ordained as a Conservative Rabbi by the Ziegler School.
Among other publications he has written the first user-friendly text book on Jewish biblical commentary: Torah Through Time: Understanding Bible Commentary from the Rabbinic Period to Modern Times.
Rav Shai is the featured lecturer for The Teaching Company’s “Introduction to Judaism.” He spent 4 years as an assistant professor of Jewish Thought at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and four years as a lecturer at UCLA. After ordination, he served for one year as the Rabbi in Residence at the San Diego Jewish Academy.
Rav Shai is married to Rebecca Cherry, M.D., a pediatric gastro-enterologist at Rady Children’s Hospital. They have 3 children: Tehila, Rina, and Shalev.
Cherry is in the process of reviewing the curriculum at the Conservative-movement-affiliated Torah School, and has scheduled a preliminary Parents Meeting on “Morality and Dinosaurs: A Rosh Hashana Talk with Rav Shai” on Wednesday, September 1st at 7:00 p.m.
More about Rav Shai is available by visiting his webpage.
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Preceding based on material provided by Tifereth Israel Synagogue