Rabbi Faith Joy Dantowitz, D.D., joined Temple B’nai Abraham in 2010, after serving as Regional Director of Admissions and Recruitment at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in New York for six years, and as a rabbi at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills for eleven years.
 
Rabbi Dantowitz is a member of the Women’s Rabbinic Network and CCAR (Central Conference of American Rabbis, the professional organization for Reform Rabbis).  She is a board member of Faith in New Jersey, where one focus is immigration rights, and a NJ leader in the Do Not Stand Idly By Campaign against Gun Violence. She was selected as an American Jewish World Service (AJWS) Global Justice Rabbinic Fellow (2014-2015) and traveled to Guatemala in 2015. She was a JOIN (Jewish Organizing Institute and Network) for Justice Rabbinic Fellow (2017-2019). Jewish summer camp and informal Jewish education are high priorities, and she spent nine summers (2003-2011) on Faculty at URJ Camp Harlam in the Poconos, a Reform Jewish overnight camp.
 
Rabbi Dantowitz grew up in Livingston in an observant Reform Jewish household. She was active in her temple youth group at Congregation B'nai Jeshurun and the statewide Reform Youth movement, JFTY. She attended Camp Harlam (Reform Jewish camp), JFTY Mitzvah Corps (a six-week summer social action learning summer in New Brunswick) and went to Israel with her family, including a Bat Mitzvah on Masada.
 
Faith Joy holds a B.A.S. in Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering and Applied Science. While at Penn, she was active with the Reform Jewish Community and Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ), serving as president of each. In December 1986, she traveled to the former Soviet Union to meet with Refuseniks in Moscow and Leningrad (Stalingrad). She led rallies and demonstrations at Penn for human rights/Soviet Jews and the following year in Boston where she worked for Action for Soviet Jewry.
 
While in Boston, Faith Joy sang with the Zamir Chorale, where she met her future husband, David. This August, they will celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary.
 
Faith Joy studied in Jerusalem, Los Angeles and New York while a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion and was ordained in 1993. After ordination, Rabbi Dantowitz was in the 4th Rabbinic Cohort of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, and she is grateful to IJS for their ongoing influence on her spiritual life. She received her honorary Doctor of Divinity for 25 years in the rabbinate two years ago.
 
Faith Joy’s senior sermon in rabbinical school was Parshat Shoftim, which includes one of her guiding texts in life, Tzedek tzedek tirdof—Justice, Justice you shall pursue. One of the highlights of her pursuit of justice has been her work on Marriage Equality, testifying at the NJ State House. In her work against gun violence, she was honored to speak at Governor Murphy’s press conference last year when he and Attorney General Gruwal signed onto the DNSIB campaign that she had worked on for years. And for immigration rights, Faith Joy was proud to stand up for DACA in an act of civil disobedience/moral obedience in 2018.
 
Faith Joy enjoys going to Broadway shows and her sons’ performances, biking, swimming, yoga and long walks with her dog.  She enjoys going to her sons’ Roundnet (Spikeball) tournaments, but has determined she is a better spectator than participant in that sport.
 
Faith Joy and David are the proud parents of Ezra Seth (27), Benjamin Hillel (25), Samuel Isaac (22), and Daniel Jonathan (18). Their dog Lily Rose (8) completes the family.