David Marcus

Congregation Har Shalom

I was born in Israel. I married Bilha, also a native Israeli, in New York City in 1976. We look forward to celebrating our 50^th wedding anniversary this coming June. We are blessed with three children—Michal, Avi, and Jonathan - all graduates of the Jewish Day School of Greater Washington (CES-JDS) in Rockville, and three grandchildren - Rayna, Dean, and Benjamin - of whom we are immensely proud.

I earned undergraduate and advanced graduate degrees in Theoretical Physics and Computer Science from Columbia University. I then built a career developing high-end enterprise-level computer software. I am happily retired as of this past June.

Community Involvement

My family has been proud members of Har Shalom (HS) since 1986. Over the years, I have served in numerous leadership roles, including:

Vice President and Board member of the Men's Club (MC member since 1986)
Past Chair of the Har Shalom Religious Activities Committee (RAC) where I led the effort to switch to the Lev Shalem edition of the High Holidays Mahzorim
Former member of the Har Shalom Board of Directors
Regular Minyanim leader, including leading Sunday evenings Zoom Minyan for the past six years to provide congregants with the opportunity to recite Kaddish
Honored as Chattan Torah on Simchat Torah

I coordinate the MC golf outings (twice weekly at local public golf courses, 25+ semi-regular golfers) along with my three co-organizers, co-lead monthly Adult Kids Dinner outings, and organize weekly breakfast gatherings for our golfing community. I am a quasi-regular Har Shalom Torah reader, Gabbai, Shacharit Service leader, Shiva minyan leader, and a regular participant in our Rabbi's Talmud study class.

My family established endowments at Har Shalom and CES-JDS that provide a Siddur for Life to every Bar and Bat Mitzvah student (at HS) with free replacement if needed, a Siddur for Life at CES-JDS (for lower school graduates). We also established additional endowments (at CES-JDS ) for Teaching Math Resources, and a Chemistry Lab.

Personal Interests

My passions include Jewish history (biblical and archaeological, and their alignment and differences), Talmud study, golf, science fiction literature and film, detective novels, and staying current with advances in computer technology – AI in particular, and theoretical physics. I’ve also translated several Hebrew books into English. Over the years, I’ve traveled to Israel regularly for both work and family visits.