Dana Evan Kaplan is a Rabbi, scholar, writer, speaker, and organizational consultant. For the past three years he was the Interim Rabbi of the Springhill Avenue Temple in Mobile, Alabama. During this time he was also a teacher in the Department of Theology at Spring Hill College, also in Mobile, Alabama. From 2011 to 2015 he was the Rabbi of the United Congregation of Israelites in Kingston, Jamaica, and was the Rabbi Bernard Hooker Lecturer in Jewish Studies at the United Theological College of the West Indies, which is affiliated with the University of the West Indies. Prior to that, he led Temple B'nai Israel in Albany, Georgia, from 2001 to 2011.

 

He is the author of A Life of Meaning: Embracing Reform Judaism's Sacred Path (CCAR Press), The New Reform Judaism (Jewish Publication Society), as well as Contemporary American Judaism: Transformation and Renewal (Columbia University Press), The Cambridge Companion to American Judaism (Cambridge University Press), American Reform Judaism: An Introduction (Rutgers University Press), Platforms and Prayer Books (Rowman and Littlefield), and Contemporary Debates in American Reform Judaism (Routledge).

 

Kaplan has been and continues to be active in various programs, think tanks, and conferences to understand the history and theology of Reform Judaism and to discuss ways to make Judaism a vibrant religious form of spirituality for the twenty-first century. This includes the Leffell Seminar on the Impact of Israel upon American Jewry, Interim Ministry Network certification program, The Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan ‘Writing Beyond the Academy’, STAR: Synagogues Transformation and Renewal ‘From Good to Great’, Clal’s ‘Rabbis Without Borders’, and others.

 

Along with his time as a rabbi, Kaplan has lectured in many diverse locations around the world. In his free time he has enjoyed adventurous activities such as scuba diving in Cozumel, Mexico, hiking around the Annapurna mountain range in Nepal, biking in Kerala, India, and climbing Blue Mountain Peak in Jamaica.

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