Rabbi Lewis John Eron, Ph.D.

My new book, I Am: A Journey in Jewish Faith, is a spiritual / theological meditation on the Shema, the Biblical declaration of God’s oneness that rests in the heart of the Jewish people.  Through poetry and prose, I use the words of the Shema and the three biblical passages that follow it to help me understand and express the faith that has guided my work as a rabbi, chaplain and teacher and has been the foundation of my life as a Jewish person. 

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I am now the rabbi emeritus of Lions Gate CCRC, a life-care community in Voorhees, NJ, where I served for almost a quarter of a century as the Director of Religious Services and as the Jewish Community Chaplain for the Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey in Cherry Hill, NJ.  I received the title of Rabbi in 1981 from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Pennsylvania and my doctorate in Biblical Studies from the Religion Department of Temple University in 1987.  I also studied at Johns Hopkins, at Yale and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. 

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I have always enjoyed working with and learning from people from all faith traditions.  I have been able to bring my academic training and the skills I have acquired as a chaplain to inter-religious dialogue, locally, nationally, and at times, internationally.  With colleagues from Temple University, I co-authored Bursting the Bonds?: A Jewish-Christian Dialogue on Jesus and Paul, a ground-breaking exploration of the founding figures of Christianity in light of contemporary scholarship and inter-religious dialogue. 

I enjoy writing poetry, liturgy, theology and children’s stories as well as martial arts, yoga and gardening.  Most of all, however, I enjoy spending time with friends and family, celebrating life and the precious time we have in this world.