Rabbi Mark S. Diamond
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Executive Vice President
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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 320 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, Pepperdine University, 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 fellow of the 2007-2010 Rabbinic Leadership Initiative of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. He 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. The rabbi is a past chairman of the Los Angeles Council of Religious Leaders, and led the Council's February 2005 interfaith trip to Israel. In April 2006, the rabbi brought forty AME pastors, rabbis, synagogue and church members on a relief mission to rebuild homes and lives devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Rabbi Diamond headed an interreligious delegation of 23 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 is a past president of the East Bay Council of Rabbis and is the founder of the "Why Be Jewish?" conferences for interfaith families and Jews-by-Choice. Rabbi Diamond has delivered addresses at the national conventions of the Conference on Alternatives in Jewish Education, the Council of Jewish Federations and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. He 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 and rabbinical ordination 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. He is married and the father of three children.
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