About Rabbi Jay Heyman

Rabbi Jay Heyman began officiating at Shabbat services and holidays in 2006, and joined us formally in 2007. Although he was ordained into the rabbinate in the Reform movement, he has long been a humanist and is as pleased as we are that he has found his congregational home with Kol Hadash.

Rabbi Heyman was ordained at America's seminary of Reform Judaism, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. For over 30 years he has been a member of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and served as rabbi of congregations in Texas, Georgia, West Virginia, the District of Columbia, the West Indies, and the state of Washington. In 1984, following training in Washington, DC, he was admitted to membership in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors. He has filled chaplaincy positions for the Texas Department of Corrections, the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation, and the Philmont High Adventure Camp in the Sangre de Cristo range of the Rockies in northern New Mexico. From 1991 to 1998, he served as a Chaplain for the U.S. Navy in Tokyo, San Diego, and Honolulu. In 1998, he was awarded the Doctor of Divinity degree by Hebrew Union College. I received my training as a healthcare chaplain in the Spiritual Care Department of the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center, work as a hospital chaplain at the Veterans Administration hospital in Palo Alto, and serve as a member of the Administrative Panel on Human Subjects in Medical Research at Stanford University.

He is a native of Little Rock, Arkansas and, although he's lived in many places, still considers himself a Southerner at heart. He has two grown children, Alisa and Jason. He and his wife, Kanit, live in the South Beach neighborhood in San Francisco. His interests include fitness swimming, scuba diving, vegetarianism, bicycling, and the world of MacIntosh computers.