Our Rabbi Max Davis

  Congregation B’nai Torah is pleased to welcome Rabbi Max Davis of Berkeley, California, to  serve as its new Rabbi. Rabbi Davis and family joined the Congregation in early August and the B’nai Torah community is greatly looking forward to their work here.

Originally from Brookline, MA, Rabbi Davis most recently served as Assistant Rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel in Berkeley, CA which afforded him the opportunity to forge close relationships with congregants, deliver sermons and shiurim, officiate at lifecycle events, create Shabbat programming for youth, and perform many additional Rabbinic functions. 

Rabbi Davis served concurrently as a part-time Judaic studies middle school teacher, which helped him hone his adolescent youth work skills and challenged him to nurture the yiddishkeit of a population beset by questions of faith. He also has experience teaching students with special needs, organizing activities for NCSY seniors and ACHVA summer campers in CT and NY, and creating scholar-in-residence programs. 

Rabbi Davis was awarded Semicha from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah in Riverdale, NY in June 2008, following a BA in Urban Studies from Harvard in 2004.  He also achieved a Master’s in Jewish Education from Yeshiva University in 2009. He has served as a chaplaincy intern at St. Luke’s Hospital and at Rikers Island Prison in NY, and was a volunteer worker in Biloxi and New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.  He feels that these opportunities have enabled him to witness simple acts of compassion that reflect the bottomless human capacity for gemilut chasadim – acts of loving  kindness.

Finally, Rabbi Davis considers himself blessed to be in the presence of his wife Dalia and their daughter Revaya.  Dalia is graduate of Barnard and Yeshiva University’s Women’s Program for Advanced Gemara Studies, and has a passion for Jewish education for all ages as well as Israeli folk dance.  She has had ample opportunity to exercise both talents in her capacity as Talmud and Navi instructor at Merkavah Women’s Torah Institute in Berkeley and as the co-founder and director of Nishmat Hatzafon Women’s Performing Arts Company in New York. 

We hope that you will all take the opportunity in the weeks to come to meet Rabbi Davis and warmly welcome the Davis family to the area.