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Rabbi Todd Silverman joined Touro Synagogue in the summer of 2015 and serves as our Associate Rabbi and director of lifelong learning.  He arrived in New Orleans from Los Angeles, but is originally from Clifton Park, NY.  He earned a bachelor’s degree in theatre from SUNY Oswego and worked as a residence counselor for Transitional Living Services in Syracuse, NY, providing in-home services to clients with developmental disabilities and traumatic brain injuries. Having had enough of the Upstate New York winters, he then moved out west to Southern California where he taught 1st and 4th grades at Brawerman Elementary School in West Los Angeles before attending Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). He was ordained as a rabbi by HUC-JIR in 2015.

During his seminary training, Rabbi Silverman interned at Temple Beth El of Santa Maria, CA, Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, and Stephen S. Wise Temple in Los Angeles, CA; he also served as visiting rabbi on the High Holy Days in Walla Walla, WA, and Butte, MT.  Throughout his time at HUC-JIR, he also continued to work in various teaching and administrative capacities at religious schools and Jewish teen programs throughout the Los Angeles area.

An ardent believer in the power of Jewish summer camp, Rabbi Silverman has attended, worked, and visited sleep-away camps on both the east and west coasts. For two summers he helped lead the Union for Reform Judaism’s Kesher program, a ten-day sleep-away camp experience for children with autism. He later spent over a decade in various capacities at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple Camps in Malibu, CA, serving as Unit Head, Counselor-In-Training director, and Camp Educator. In 2003 he was selected by the Foundation for Jewish Camp as a Spielberg Fellow for Jewish Theater Arts, studying and preparing with a small group of educators from across the country. Since arriving at Touro Synagogue, he’s fallen deeply in love with the people and magic of Henry S. Jacobs Camp in Utica, MS.

During his course of study at HUC-JIR, Rabbi Silverman received the Rabbi Mordecai and Mrs. Eve Soloff Award for Excellence in Jewish Education and has preached extensively on the need for rethinking and reforming the process of Jewish education in the 21st century. He is the author of a curriculum guide entitled “I Applied My Heart to Know Wisdom: A Jewish Perspective On Personal Ideologies”, which focuses on texts from the books of Job, Ecclesiastes, and Pirkei Avot and, as part of his ordination process, submitted a thesis entitled “The Authentic King David: An Immersion into 1 Samuel 16 Thru 1Kings 1.”

You may contact Rabbi Silverman here.