Friday, March 29th 2024   |

GOP announces hire of Rabbi David Gerber

Metairie’s Congregation Gates of Prayer chose its next spiritual leader on Wednesday evening as the board of trustees unanimously voted in favor of Rabbi David Gerber to assume the rabbinate on July 1, 2018. Gerber, one of two rabbis presently serving Congregation Beth Or in Maple Park, Pennsylvania, will take over for Rabbi Robert Loewy, who will assume the Rabbi Emeritus position there, after 33 years.

Rabbi David Gerber from 2016. (Photo via Congregation Beth Or website)

Gerber has been with his present congregation since July of 2012. A native of St. Louis, he attended Indiana University, graduating with a telecommunications degree in 2002. Following a brief period where he worked as a financial advisor, Gerber enrolled in Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in Cincinnati.

During his rabbinic studies at HUC-JIR, Gerber was noted as having engaged an impressive number of young adults and young families. Additionally, he worked as a chaplain at The Christ Hospital. He joined Temple B’nai Israel as a student rabbi in Kokomo, Indiana, where he also served as a chaplain at the nearby Miami Correctional Facility. Additionally, Gerber spent time in his hometown of St. Louis serving Congregation Shaare Emeth.

Rabbi Gerber is an accomplished singer and guitarist and a proponent of using modern technologies to engage Jewish community life.

He is married to his wife Lauren, who hails from Cincinnati. The couple has two young daughters, Paige and Tessa.

Rabbi Alexis Berk of Touro Synagogue will become the longest-serving senior Reform rabbi in the New Orleans area next year when Loewy joins ranks with fellow Rabbis Emeritus David Goldstein, also from Touro, and Ed Paul Cohn from Temple Sinai

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