Rabbi Daniel R. Shevitz

Rabbi Dan Shevitz serves Congregation Mishkon Tephilo in Venice, California, just two blocks from the beach. He previously served Emanuel Synagogue in Oklahoma City and as Hillel director and Jewish chaplain at MIT in Cambridge, MA. He also teaches Talmud in the Ziegler Rabbinical School of the American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism).

Rabbi Dan is Av Bet Din (president of the court) of the Southern California Community Bet Din, a pluralistic community court for conversion to Judaism, and has served the community as a chaplain for the Los Angeles Police Department. He is a mesadder gittin – a rabbi trained to arrange for Jewish divorce – certified by the Rabbinical Assembly.

He is a licensed private pilot, motorcyclist, and has apprenticed as an auto mechanic with Tom and Ray Magliozzi in Cambridge (of "Car Talk" on National Public Radio). He has flirted with many instruments over the years, and still can be heard entertaining the children on the accordion every Friday at the Mishkon Tephilo pre-school. In 2007 he fulfilled a lifetime fantasy to learn timpani, which he studied with Aaron Smith, and is now principal percussionist of the Palisades Symphony. He lives in Venice with Humuhumunukunuku, a Mollucan cockatoo ("M2").

dan at shevitz.net