Daniel Greyber is the rabbi of Beth El Synagogue in Durham, North Carolina. Rabbi Greyber grew up in Potomac, Maryland and spent the first 21 years of his life focused competitive swimming. A gold medalist and Captain of the U.S. Swimming Team at the 1993 World Maccabiah Games, Rabbi Greyber holds a Masters in Speech and Communications Studies from Northwestern University and was ordained in 2002 at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies of American Jewish University where received the Henry Fisher Award for outstanding achievement in Jewish Studies. Most of all, Daniel is a husband to his wife, Jennifer, and an abba to their three boys, Alon, Benjamin, and Ranon.
During rabbinical school, he founded The Neshama Minyan at Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles and Minyan Nifla at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, soulful, egalitarian, Friday night services using the melodies of the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. While in rabbinical school, Rabbi Greyber also founded LISHMA, an innovative learning program of Ramah and the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies (ZSRS) where young adult Jews spend the summer exploring traditional Jewish texts, prayer and practice in the beautiful setting of Camp Ramah in California. As a result of the success of the LISHMA program, he was selected in 2001 as a recipient of the Joshua Venture Fellowship, which supports and trains emerging Jewish social entrepreneurs to transform their visions into action.
Upon rabbinic ordination in 2002, Greyber became the executive director of Camp Ramah in California and the Max & Pauline Zimmer Conference Center of American Jewish University. Rabbi Greyber was selected in 2006 for the inaugural Executive Leadership Institute (ELI) of the Foundation for Jewish Camp, a program which provides experienced camp professionals business, management, and leadership skills required to enrich their camps and compete in the summer marketplace.
While in his role at Ramah, Rabbi Greyber was an adjunct faculty member of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, teaching courses on liturgy, Halakhah and a variety of seminars about Judaism and the American rabbinate. Greyber served as a scholar-in-residence for programs of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and a variety of Conservative synagogues throughout the West, and as a teacher at conventions of the Rabbinical Assembly and Jewish Educators Assembly.
Rabbi Greyber's writings have been published in Dancing on the Edge of the World: Jewish Stories of Inspiration and Love (Lowell House Press, 2000); Many Ways into God’s Palace: Essays in Honor of the 36th Anniversary of the Library Minyan (Temple Beth Am, 2008); CJ Voices Magazine, Conservative Judaism, Midstream Magazine, the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, The New York Jewish Week and other Jewish periodicals. After a nine-year tenure at Ramah, Greyber spent the 2010-11 academic year as a Jerusalem Fellow at the Mandel Leadership Institute in Israel. In July 2011, he became the rabbi of Beth El Synagogue, a Conservative and Orthodox synagogue that welcomes many intermarried and gay and lesbian families. Greyber is the author of Faith Unravels: A Rabbi’s Struggle With Grief and God (Wipf and Stock Resource Publications). To order, click here.