Rabbi Mark Diamond

Executive Vice President

Rabbi Mark Diamond is Executive Vice President of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California. In that position, he directs a multi-denominational organization of 330 rabbis, and serves on the senior management team of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.

Prior to assuming this position in August 2000, Rabbi Diamond served as rabbi of congregations in metropolitan San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York. He founded and coordinated "Ask a Rabbi," an acclaimed cyberspace forum answering online questions from America Online subscribers.

As the Board's Executive Vice President, Rabbi Diamond has created innovative programs for colleagues and the community, including Lilmod Ve'la'asot (professional growth and development workshops for rabbis), Torah Lishmah seminars with master text teachers, and the Critical Issues Series featuring experts in the religious, educational and political spheres. The rabbi is quoted frequently in local and national media and is a leader in collaborative interfaith projects, including partnerships with Fuller Theological Seminary, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, United Methodist Church, Abrahamic Faith-Based Reconciliation Project, World Vision International, and other faith communities and organizations.

Rabbi Diamond is a member of the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council and the Ethics Resource Committee of Children's Hospital of Los Angeles. He is a past chairman of the Los Angeles Council of Religious Leaders, and has led interfaith trips to Israel for judicatory officials, clergy, and leaders of seminaries and faith-based universities. Rabbi Diamond headed an interreligious delegation of Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders on a January 2008 mission to the Vatican, Rome and Israel, highlighted by an audience with Pope Benedict XVI. Later that year he created the Jewish Federation's Interreligious Action Center to promote Israel education and awareness in non-Jewish faith communities. The rabbi has lectured and taught at Pepperdine University, Fuller Theological Seminary, Loyola Marymount University, Baylor University, Mount St. Mary's College, and the Los Angeles campuses of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the University of Judaism and the Academy for Jewish Religion.

Rabbi Diamond received his Master of Arts degree in Jewish studies, rabbinical ordination and Doctor of Divinity (honoris causa) from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York. He was awarded the Seminary's Lillian M. Lowenfeld Prize in Practical Theology and the Dr. Michael Higger Prize in Talmud. The rabbi is a Magna cum Laude graduate of Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota. Rabbi Diamond also studied in the Rabbinic Management Program of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, where he is a senior rabbinic fellow. He is married to Lois and the father of Adina, Ariella and Jeremy.