Rabbi Rick Jacobs is president of the Union for Reform Judaism. Before that he spent 20 years as the spiritual leader of Westchester Reform Temple (WRT) in Scarsdale, New York, and earlier, as the rabbi of the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue, where he created the first homeless shelter in a New York City synagogue. Jacobs was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York where he also earned his M.A. in Hebrew Literature, and has studied for two decades at Jerusalem's Shalom Hartman Institute, where he is a senior rabbinic fellow. One of Jacobs’ current foci is as an advocate for an Israel that is secure, Jewish, democratic, and pluralistic, with a vibrant Reform Jewish community.