About Rabbi Lubliner

Born and raised in Westchester County, New York, Jonathan Lubliner earned his bachelor’s degree with honors from Vassar College in 1985.  He received his MA from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where he was also ordained and pursued post-graduate studies in Jewish history.  Rabbi Lubliner served congregations in Connecticut and New Jersey before becoming the Jack F. Shorstein Senior Rabbi of the Jacksonville Jewish Center in 2004

His involvement in the larger community beyond the pulpit has encompassed a wide range of activities.  Since 2005 he has been a visiting rabbinic instructor at Camp Ramah Darom, and prior to that, at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires, where he also served as Rabbi-in-Residence for Imun, United Synagogue’s international lay leadership training program.  A Judaic Studies curriculum advisor to the Solomon Schechter Day School of Raritan Valley, during his years in New Jersey Rabbi Lubliner was appointed to the Municipal Ethics Board of Old Bridge Township, and co-founded a local interfaith consortium to promote dialogue and better understanding between different religious communities.

From 2016 through 2022 here in Jacksonville he served on the board of OneJax, an interfaith organization dedicated to the promotion of diversity as the foundation of strong community, and is a member of the Professional Advisory Group for Northeast Florida Community Hospice.  From 2019 to 2022 he served on the Baptist Medical Center South Board and Baptist Health Care System’s Committee on Social Responsibility and Community Health.  In recognition of his commitment to interfaith dialogue, the Interfaith Center of Northeast Florida presented him with its Community Education Award in the spring of 2020. He was also recipient of the 2021 statewide Public Citizen of the Year Award, presented by the Florida chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.

Rabbi Lubliner has long been deeply interested in conversion to Judaism.  In the autumn of 2001 he became the Dean of the Institute for Conversion and Outreach Education, a program of the New Jersey region of the Rabbinical Assembly, serving more than 60 affiliated congregations within the state.  From 2006 to 2010 he served as Chair of the Taskforce on Conversion for the Rabbinical Assembly, the international body of the Conservative rabbinate, and is the author of Petah Ha-Ohel – At the Entrance of the Tent: A Rabbinic Guide to Conversion, published in 2011.  As Chair of the Conversion Review Commission from 2014 until 2019, he led the effort to coordinate the Conservative/Masorti movement’s conversion policies on five continents.  He was also a member of the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards from 2011 until 2019.

A second generation rabbi, Jonathan Lubliner is blessed by his marriage to Susan, a Judaic artist and Hebrew calligrapher, and privileged to be the father of the couple’s three children, Avichai, Elior and Itamar.  He enjoys cooking, reading, and biking, and is a loyal fan of the New York Yankees.