Rabbi Evan Moffic, who grew up in Fox Point, became a go-to rabbi for Fox News after someone there noticed his article on the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut school shooting.
Moffic got the call from Fox News after he published a brief piece on beliefnet, telling the 18th century rabbinical story of a man crying over his burnt-down house. The man found material in the rubble of his house to rebuild.
In his article, Moffic drew a parallel to the horrific shooting: “It will take a long time to collect the pieces we need to rebuild. With open hearts and ready hands, we need to start now.”
All pulpit rabbis live in a fishbowl, always at the center of things, but Moffic has taken the phenomenon one step further by making the whole world his fishbowl.
He estimates he’s been on Fox News about a dozen times, commenting on Israel, the Pope in America, anti-Semitism in Europe and other issues.
He’s written a series of articles for The Huffington Post, crafting headlines tailor-made for grabbing attention on the Internet. Posts include “The Most Revolutionary Part of the Ten Commandments”; “Is It Offensive to Say ‘Old Testament’?” and “What I Learned at the White House Chanukah Party.”
And Moffic published his latest book in February, 2016, “What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Jewishness of Jesus: A New Way of Seeing the Most Influential Rabbi in History.”
“Part of my job as a rabbi is to use Jewish wisdom to improve civic dialogue and really add to the larger community,” Moffic said in an interview. He said that with so much intermarriage, there’s “a need for greater education about one another’s faiths.”
Moffic graduated from Nicolet High School and was a member of Congregation Shalom in Fox Point. Moffic says Rabbi Ronald Shapiro at Shalom was a huge influence on him.
At Congregation Shalom he learned of the importance of “caring for every single member of the congregation. Rabbi Ronald Shapiro, I know, cared for every single member of the community.”
“I try to bring that into my rabbinate,” he added, referring to his role since 2009 at Congregation Solel in Highland Park, Illinois. “I’m very lucky I have a very supportive congregation,” he said, noting that it is his first priority.
“Chicago is wonderful but it’s huge,” he added. “I love my synagogue and I love Highland Park. But there’s a certain intimacy and beauty for the Jewish community in Milwaukee. It’s very tight-knit. Everyone knows each other.”
He remembers his grandfather going into Heinemann’s Restaurant, formerly at 333 E. Brown Deer Road in Fox Point, and knowing half of the people there (and having delivered some of them as babies).
Besides writing and blogging leading to his Fox News appearances, it has also led to several books including, “Wisdom for People of all Faiths: Ten Ways to Connect with God.” An agent saw his articles online and approached him.
Moffic was planning to go to law school as an undergraduateat Stanford University but loved Jewish studies and got drawn into it. He had a good mentor, a professor there named Arnold M. Eisen, who is now chancellor of The Jewish Theological Seminary, an academic umbrella organization for Conservative Judaism. Moffic has fond memories of Shabbat dinners at Eisen’s home.
“I was looking to do something meaningful with my life,” Moffic now recalls.
Today, he serves a500-family Chicago-area congregation, while also seeking to spread Judaism’s “wisdom and gifts and insights.”
“The point of Judaism shouldn’t be to survive,” he said. “It should be to help people thrive.”
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· More than 17,000 likes for his public Facebook page.
· Billed as a “rabbi and a writer for people of all faiths.”
· Leads a congregation of 500 families in Illinois.
· Visiting Milwaukee April 13 (see Coming Events section).
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