Personal Life Media

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson is the Dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, which has grown under his leadership from approximately 45 students to over 80 students, from all over North America, Brazil, Australia, England, and Uganda. He is also Vice President of the University of Judaism, and teaches courses in Ancient & Medieval Jewish Philosophy, Modern & Contemporary Jewish Theology, as well as Homiletics. He is a Doctoral Candidate in Constructive Theology at the Hebrew Union College/Jewish Institute of Religion.

A cum laude graduate of Harvard University, Rabbi Artson was an intern for United States Senator Alan Cranston and for United States Representative John Burton. For the two years following graduation from college, he worked as a Legislative Aide to Willie Brown, the Speaker of the California State Assembly. He was ordained with honors at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1988.

He served as the rabbi of Congregation Eilat, Mission Viejo, California, a Conservative synagogue, which grew in the decade under his guidance from 200 membership units to almost 600. Following his pulpit service, Rabbi Artson was the Executive Vice President of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California and a member of the Senior Management of the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles.

Rabbi Artson has just completed the Gift of Soul, Gift of Wisdom: Spiritual Resources for Leadership & Mentoring, due out summer 2006. He is the author of Love Peace and Pursue Peace: A Jewish Response to War and Nuclear Annihilation. Founding author of the weekly "A Word of Torah" Column in the Southern California Jewish Heritage, which he wrote for 7 years, Rabbi Artson now writes "Today's Torah," a weekly Torah commentary with over 12,000 Internet subscribers. He also wrote a widely-distributed column, "Dear Rabbi." Alef Design Group has publishing a collection of these columns as a book, Jewish Answers to Life's Questions. He is the author of It's A Mitzvah! Jewish Living Step-By-Step, published by Behrman House and The Rabbinical Assembly. McGraw-Hill has published The Bedside Torah: Dreams, Blessings & Wisdom.

The author of over 180 published articles, Rabbi Artson served as a Senior Contributing Editor to the Jewish Spectator, a Contributing Editor to Jewish Family and Life!, is a member of the International Advisory Board of Outlook Magazine of the Women's League for Conservative Judaism, the Board of Advisors of The American Rabbi, and was a columnist for the online column "It's A Spiritual Thing," for the AVI CHAI Bookshelf, a resource for Birthright Israel alumni/ae until it closed.

A popular speaker, (with speeches available to download at http://www.jadio.org), Rabbi Artson is a member of the faculty of the Wexner Heritage Foundation and the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program. He served on the Professional Advisory Committee of the Jewish National Fund Department of Education. Rabbi Artson was the Founding Chair of the Special Publications Committee of the Rabbinical Assembly. For many years he has served as a Scholar-In-Residence for several programs of various Camps Ramah. He is a member of Advisory Board of the Conversion to Judaism Resource Center, and a frequent teacher at the UJC/Federation’s General Assembly, he is a member of the Rabbinic Cabinet of the UJC, and has been a popular keynote speaker and teacher for CAJE conferences.

In 2006, Rabbi Artson was the recipient of the Red Yarmulke Humanitarian Award. In recognition of "Outstanding Contributions to Jewish Education," Rabbi Artson was the 1996 Honoree of the Orange County Bureau of Jewish Education. Through his Introduction to Judaism program, he helped over 200 people convert to Judaism. Rabbi Artson lives with his wife, Elana. They are the parents of twins, Shira and Jacob.