Rabbi Joshua Stanton puts Jewish learning, pastoral care, and social justice first. He loves connecting with people individually and supporting their spiritual journeys and pursuit of meaning.

Rabbi Stanton’s passion for religious pluralism and interfaith dialogue has led to his involvement and leadership internationally. He serves as Director for Leadership at CLAL – The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, where he focuses on questions of religious pluralism in the United States and Israel. He likewise serves on the Board of Trustees of Interfaith America, the leading interfaith organization in the country, and on the Board of Governors of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, which presides over Jewish-Christian relations with the Vatican and World Council of Churches. You may have already seen Rabbi Stanton on CNN or in a documentary film, or read about him in syndicated media, publications, and articles that have appeared in a dozen languages. 

Rabbi Stanton was ordained from Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in 2013, where he received the David G. Sacks Prize for General Academic Excellence, the Rabbi M. Cohen Award for Ecumenical Studies and the Rabbi Samuel J. Levinson Prize in Religion and the Humanities. While at HUC-JIR, Rabbi Stanton served as founding co-editor of the Journal of Interreligious Studies, the pre-eminent academic journal in the field of Interreligious Studies, helping it gain recognition as a field of its own by the American Academy of Religion. He received international acclaim for his work, being honored as one of six global finalists for the $100,000 Coexist Prize.

He is an alumnus of Amherst College, from which he graduated magna cum laude with majors in history, economics, and Spanish. He returned there to deliver the 2018 Baccalaureate Address on the 10th anniversary of his graduation.

To hone his leadership skills, Rabbi Stanton earned a certificate in Spiritual Innovation through the Glean Fellowship with Columbia Business School, and he learns from some of the best Jewish communal professionals in his service on the Board of Directors of Plaza Jewish Community Chapels.

In 2017, Rabbi Stanton co-edited a symposium edition of the Reform Jewish Quarterly on empowering the rising generations in American congregations with his close colleague and friend, Rabbi Benjamin Spratt. The two are longtime creative partners, having co-founded Tribe, a New York-based initiative that has empowered thousands of young professionals to develop a vibrant Jewish community. They are co-authors of Awakenings:  American Jewish Transformations in Identity, Leadership, and Belonging (Berhman House, 2022) and are currently working on a follow-up volume about similar trends in other religious traditions. 

Rabbi Stanton was named a 2019 Faith Justice Hero by the Interfaith Center of New York and received a 2020 Racial Equity and Interfaith Cooperation Award from the Interfaith Youth Core. In 2021, he received the Ann Friedman Award from the Gramercy Stuyvesant Independent Democrats, in recognition of his immigration rights advocacy, and was named to the inaugural class of Sacred Journey Fellows, selected from a group of 1,700 interfaith leaders from across the country. In 2022, he was invited to become a Founding Partner of Starts With Us, a movement to overcome social division and polarization. In 2023, he served as Interfaith Consultant to the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Parade.

Prior to joining East End Temple in 2017, Rabbi Stanton served as associate rabbi at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills New Jersey,  associate director of the Center for Global Judaism at Hebrew College, and director of communications for the Coexist Foundation.