Steve Gutow is President and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. He is a lawyer, rabbi, and political organizer.

 

As leader of the JCPA Steve has helped move the Jewish community and the government to end genocide in Darfur, reform immigration policy, support Israel, maintain poverty programs, and create a sustainable environment.  In 2007, Steve was named to the “Forward 50,” and in 2009 and 2010, Newsweek named him the 20^th most influential rabbi in the US. Gutow presently serves on the Economic Recovery Task Force of the President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. He also served as chair of the Save Darfur Coalition from 2006 to 2007 and is now an executive committee member, SDC is a U.S.-based advocacy group calling for international intervention in Sudan, to try and stop the genocidal conflict in that nation.

 

Steve has served in lay leadership roles for the American Jewish Congress, the Texas Civil Liberties Union, and in many other Jewish and general community organizations.  He served as the founding executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council and the first southwest regional director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

 

He graduated from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and was Rabbi of the Reconstructionist Minyan of St. Louis.  He served as Adjunct Law Professor Law at St. Louis University.

 

In workshops, in speeches and in articles, he has addressed subjects including racial harmony, religious pluralism and civil liberties, the safety and security of Israel, poverty, healthcare, and the environment.

 

 His article “Tikkun Olam: A Public Policy Focus” in the Fall 2001 issue of The Reconstructionist journal expressed his understanding of the underpinnings of the Jewish rationale for social justice - - something so central to Gutow’s being that in 2001 he was awarded both the Reconstructionist Student Association Prize for Social Action within RRC, and the Rabbi Devora Bartnoff Memorial Prize for Spiritually Motivated Social Action.

 

 

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