Past Sermons > Difficult Discussions > Give Me Shelter > Do Not Break Down... > Revisionism and Radicalism > Yom Kippur '05 > Rosh Hashanah '05 - Day 1 > Rosh Hashanah '05 - Day 2 > The Eye of the Storm > Star Wars... > Confronting Confrontation > Do You Believe in Dinosaurs? > Bar Mitzvah Sermon > What was the Sin of Sodom? > Intermarriage-Rosh Hashana '07 > Pencil Sermon - Yom Kippur '07 > Rosh Hashanah 2008 - Day 1 > Rosh Hashanah 2008 - Day 2 > Rosh Hashanah 2009 - Day 1 > Rosh Hashanah 2009 - Day 2

Congregation B’nai Torah is delighted to welcome Rabbi Joshua Z. Heller, who began serving in July 2004. His intelligence, sensitivity, dynamism and sense of humor have helped create close bonds with the congregation in just a short period of time.

Rabbi Heller is the third generation in his family to be ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) and is a ninth generation rabbi. Before coming to Atlanta, Rabbi Heller served as Director of Distance Learning and Educational Technology at JTS, bringing Jewish learning to over 20,000 people each week, on levels ranging from casual adult learning to Masters' level courses, and helped develop online resources like Learn.jtsa.edu. Rabbi Heller also supervised a number of initiatives within JTS to apply technology in training Rabbis, Cantors and other Jewish educators and professionals.

In addition, Rabbi Heller served for three years as the first rabbi of The Downtown Synagogue; a start-up congregation that meets just blocks from the site of the World Trade Center, and guided them through the tumultuous times after 9/11.

Rabbi Heller is involved in many aspects of congregational life. He guides B’nai Torah’s families through lifecycle events, is a spiritual presence at daily and weekly religious services, and is the cornerstone of our redeveloping adult education program. He plays an increasingly important role in the lives of our preschool, religious school and day school families. In addition, Rabbi Heller is responsible for ensuring that the synagogue’s kitchen, Mikvah and Eiruv meet appropriate standards.

Aside from his congregational and organizational work, Rabbi Heller is an expert in issues of technology in Jewish life, particularly the impact of the Internet on Jewish education and community. He has served on several national and international bodies dealing with related issues, and has lectured and taught widely on these and other topics.

Before opting out of the dot-com boom to obtain ordination, Rabbi Heller graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard with a degree in computer science, and published original research in the Journal for Computational Neuroscience.

Rabbi Heller and his wife Wendy, who is active in the community, have a son and a daughter.