Adam Fisher

Adam D Fisher’s poetry has appeared in numerous Jewish and general literary journals. He is the author of two previous volumes of poetry: Rooms, Airy Rooms (Cross Cultural Communications-Writers Ink, 1988), and Dancing Alone (Birnham Wood, 1993). In 1990, he was the winner of the Jeanne Voege Poetry Prize, at the Westhampton Writers Festival; and, in 1991, he was the recipient of a Rosenberg Award, presented by the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley, California, for poems on the Jewish experience. In 2008 he won first prize in the Performance Poets Association poetry contest.

Rabbi Fisher is also the author of two books of liturgy: Seder Tu Bishevat: The Festival of Trees, published in 1989, (Central Conference of American Rabbis) and An Everlasting Name: A Service For Remembering the Shoah, (Behrman House, 1991). His books for children include, Home Start Holiday Series (Behrman House, 1987), My Jewish Year (Behrman House, 1993) and God’s Garden (Behrman House, 1999), a book of original midrashic stories.

His short fiction has appeared in The Jewish Spectator, Echoes, Paragraph, The Story Teller and Home Planet News. He has also published many scholarly and professional articles, contributed to anthologies and done translations. Currently, he is the Poetry Editor of the CCAR Journal.

Dr. Fisher served as a Chaplain in the U.S. Navy, and as Rabbi in Lynchberg, Virginia, before becoming the Rabbi of Temple Isaiah, Stony Brook, in 1971. He served in that capacity until 2002, when he became the Rabbi Emeritus. He graduated from Colgate University with high honors in Philosophy and Religion in 1962. In 1967, he received Rabbinic Ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, where he earned a Doctor of Hebrew Letters degree in 1971, and was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Divinity in 1992.

He has served on the Joint Commission on Social Action of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations-Central Conference of American Rabbis, and in 1975 wrote, “To Deal Thy Bread to the Hungry,” (UAHC), an action workbook on world hunger. He was a member of the Liturgy Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and served on an editorial team for new publications. Rabbi Fisher was one of the founders and a past-president of the Shalom Interfaith Project, which provides social services for the poor. He was honored twice by The Ministries, in Coram, New York, for his social activism. The Village Times-Herald newspaper honored him as “Man of the Year in Religion,” in 2002.

He and his wife, Eileen, who taught pre-school for many years, live in Stony Brook. They have two married daughters: Rachel, who is a reading specialist, and Deborah, who is an artist. They have three granddaughters and a grandson. He is an enthusiastic woodworker who designs and builds studio furniture. He loves the natural world and enjoys gardening, bike riding and kayaking.

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Books by Adam Fisher