Rabbi John Moscowitz

John Moscowitz, rabbi emeritus of Holy Blossom, served the congregation for twenty-seven years as an active rabbi, including fourteen ( 2000-2014) as the congregation’s Senior Rabbi.

St. Louis- born, Rabbi Moscowitz earned a BA (Political Studies) at Pitzer College in Claremont California in 1975, and rabbinic ordination from the Hebrew Union College in New York in 1982. He subsequently did three years of graduate work at UCLA in Psycho-History, before coming to Holy Blossom in 1987. John Moscowitz is a Senior Rabbinic Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem.

As Holy Blossom’s Senior Rabbi, John Moscowitz launched the congregation’s physical transformation with a call to bring one of North America’s leading synagogues into the twenty-first century, both spatially and spiritually.

Through one of the continent’s pre-eminent speakers series (The Gerald Schwartz/ Heather Reisman Lecture Series At Holy Blossom Temple), the rabbi turned the synagogue into perhaps Canada’s central address for discussion of important issues, relevant to Jews and non-Jews. Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Ambassadors Abba Eban, Samantha Power and Michael Oren; celebrated authors and commentators Elie Wiesel, Tom Hayden, Amos Oz, Charles Krauthammer, Eric Yoffie,  Ruth Wisse, Yossi Klein Halevi, Arthur Hertzberg, Daniel Gordis, Norman Doidge, David Hartman, Margaret MacMillan, David Wolpe, Victor Davis Hansen and Arthur Schlesinger were among the many Moscowitz brought to the Holy Blossom sanctuary to speak before overflowing crowds.

Integral to John Moscowitz’s leadership and rabbinate has been his strong defence of the State of Israel—even as such a stance has grown less popular among liberal Jews.

His 2015 book, “Evolution of An UnOrthodox Rabbi” addresses the rabbi’s evolution from a conventional liberal rabbi to an unorthodox one — on Israel, as well as salient contemporary issues ( i.e. gun violence; same-sex weddings; and evolution itself)

John Moscowitz is writing a book about his days as a young radical under the influence of Tom Hayden.