| Biography:Â Rabbi Akiba Lubow was born in Los Angeles, California and raised in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, Kansas.
He received a B.A. Degree in Political Science from Indiana University. Originally pursuing a career in the political world following graduation, he served as Special Assistant to the Governor of California, Edmund G. Brown Jr. and later served as Governor Brown’s Campaign Treasurer during his gubernatorial re-election campaign. Following the election, he continued to serve as the Treasurer of the Governor’s political organization, Californians for Brown.
It was while serving as Campaign Treasurer that Rabbi Lubow began his Rabbinical studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, then the West Coast Affiliate of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. There he earned a Bachelor of Hebrew Literature degree. Having studied for a year at the Jerusalem Branch of the Jewish Theological Seminary, he completed his studies at the Seminary in New York, where he earned an M.A. and was ordained in 1984.
Rabbi Lubow began his Rabbinic career while still a Rabbinical student, when he was selected as the Secretary of the Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, the halakhic body (the body that rules on Jewish Law) of the Conservative Movement. He was selected, as well, to serve as the Rabbinical Assembly’s Director of Programming and as the Administrator of the Conservative Movement’s Joint Placement Commission. He served as the Editor of the Proceedings of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, published by the Rabbinical Assembly, and was the Secretary of the Commission on the Philosophy of Conservative Judaism, which produced the landmark Conservative publication, Emet Ve-Emunah: Statement of Principles of Conservative Judaism.
Rabbi Lubow has served congregations in St. Louis, Missouri, Rochester, New York, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Buffalo, New York, and most recently Cranford, New Jersey.
In each of the congregations in which he has served, Rabbi Lubow has held several high profile positions of community leadership. In October 1997 he became one of only 50 Rabbis throughout North America to receive Israel Bond’s Golden Shofar Award, presented during the year-long celebration of Israel’s 50th Anniversary.
He currently serves as a Community Rabbi, working with families to insure meaningful life-cycle events, providing challenging educational opportunities for both adults and children, and speaking and/officiate at religious services at local congregations.
Rabbi Lubow was married in August 1991 to the former Rahel Cahn of San Jose, California. They are the proud parents of daughter Ariel and son Micah. |