David Jaffe

David Jaffe is a writer, activist, rabbi and spiritual seeker. His first book, Changing the World from the Inside Out (Trumpeter, 2016), explores how to walk a holy path that integrates deep spiritual wisdom with the daily work of peacemaking and social change. David’s social consciousness was forged as a child learning about the Holocaust and participating in school desegregation in the volatile early 1970s New York. He has spent his entire adult life pursuing Jewish wisdom and working for reconciliation and social justice. This journey has taken him from his home in New York to the homeless shelters of San Francisco’s Tenderloin, to traditional Yeshiva in Jerusalem, to refugee camps of Central Africa and faith-rooted community organizing in Boston. During this time David served as the Director of Social Justice Programs at the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, as a founding board member of Avodah: The Jewish Service Corps and as the Spiritual Advisor at Gann Academy in Waltham, MA. David is the Founder and Principal of the Kirva Institute, where he teaches applied Jewish wisdom to people of all backgrounds.