Richard Jacobs (rabbi)

Richard (Reuben Jacob) Jacobs is a Reform rabbi and the president of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), the congregational arm of the Reform movement in North America which represents an estimated 1.5 million Reform Jews in nearly 900 synagogues across the United States and Canada. He is the first Union president to have served most of his career as a congregational rabbi. Before being installed as URJ president in June 2012, he served for nine years at Brooklyn Heights Synagogue and then for twenty years at Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, New York.

Jacobs was among a group of American Reform rabbis that called for “urgent change” in the Reform movement. He focuses on environmentalism, social justice and liberal Zionism alongside traditional worship. He has served on the boards of several Jewish organizations, including the World Union for Progressive Judaism, American Jewish World Service and the New Israel Fund.

Rabbi Jacobs was listed as number six in The Daily Beast and Newsweek’s list of “America’s Top 50 Rabbis for 2013” and was 26th on the Jerusalem Post’s 2012 list of “50 most influential Jews in the world.”