Rabbi Matt Rosenberg
As of the fall of 2011, Matt Rosenberg is enrolled in his fifth year at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, with rabbinic ordination expected in May 2013. Matt is the 2011-2013 rabbinic intern at Adat Ari El Synagogue in Valley Village, California, where he teaches religious school, confirmation seminar, and adult education.
Matt also currently serves as the spiritual leader of Valley Ruach (a community of Jewish young professionals in The San Fernando Valley), the rabbinic intern for NECHAMA: Jewish Response to Disaster (find Matt's writing on Judaism and Disaster online), and as a volunteer with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s Crisis Response Team.
In the summer of 2011, Matt traveled to Novosibirsk, Siberia to participate in the Joint Distribution Committee’s Siberian Bar/Bat Mitzvah program in which he taught 60 Russian teens about Judaism and officiated at their communal Bar/Bat Mitzvah. The Los Angeles Jewish Journal published an article about Matt's trip in August 2011.
Matt previously served as the student rabbi of Temple Beth Sholom of the Menifee Valley in Riverside County and at an assisted living facility in Los Angeles. Matt was a rabbinical student delegate for the American Jewish World Service in Ghana in 2008 and participated in the World Union for Progressive Judaism’s Pesach Project in Ukraine in 2007. During the 2006-2007 school year Matt and his wife Jennifer studied at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem.
Matt is a professional geographer who has operated the About.com geography website since 1997. He is the author of two books about geography and he taught geography at California State University Sacramento. Matt earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees in geography at UC Davis and CSU Northridge, respectively.
Prior to rabbinical school, Matt worked for and volunteered with the American Red Cross as an emergency and volunteer services director. He responded to more than two dozen major disasters around the United States, including Hurricane Katrina and the events of September 11, 2001. During high school, Matt became a volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician.
Rabbi Matt can be reached via email at rosenbergmatt@gmail.com and followed on Twitter at @mrgeog and @rabbimattr
Updated: October 11, 2011