Rabbi Alana Suskin

Rabbi Alana Suskin is an educator, activist, and widely-published writer. Ordained by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in California, she also holds BAs in Philosophy and Russian Linguistics, an MA in Philosophy and a graduate certificate in Women’s Studies, and is a popular speaker and teacher around the country. She is a senior managing editor of the progressive blog Jewschool.com, called “The most important thing happening online in the Jewish community today,” by noted Jewish sociologists Ari Kelman & Steven M. Cohen. Rabbi Suskin served as Assistant Rabbi at Adas Israel in Washington DC, the first synagogue in the USA to be addressed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Director of Lifelong Learning at Shaare Torah in Gaithersburg, MD. Out of a passionate love for Israel and Zionism, she turned her rabbinate toward Israel advocacy and education with the Zionist, two-state policy organization, Americans for Peace Now. She has served on the boards of T’ruah, Jews United for Justice, and Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington. As an outgrowth of her long-time peace building and interfaith efforts, she is currently engaged in a project developing relationships between Jewish and Muslim communities in her region, together reaching out to and overcoming fear in communities unfamiliar with us and our religious practices and customs. Rabbi Suskin is a Rabbis Without Borders Fellow.