Dr. Jonathan Golden

Dr. Jonathan Golden is Senior Educator at OpenDor Media. He teaches at Hebrew College and is the founder of HeartStance Education Consulting. He is also a fellow at the Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education. From 1999 to 2023, he taught at Gann Academy, a pluralistic Jewish high school in Waltham, MA and served as the school’s Israel Curriculum Coordinator.

A graduate of Princeton University, Dr. Golden received his M.J.Ed. from Hebrew College and Ph.D. from Brandeis University. At Brandeis, he studied American Jewish history under the tutelage of Professor Jonathan Sarna and wrote a dissertation entitled From Cooperation to Confrontation: The Rise and Fall of the Synagogue Council of America.

Dr. Golden has participated in the Schusterman Center Summer Institute for Israel Studies which in 2022 included participants from Abraham Accords countries (Morocco, Bahrain, UAE), and has taught the Myra Kraft Seminar on Israel to first year students of the Hornstein program at Brandeis University.

As a member of a Conservative synagogue in his childhood, a Reform community in college, modern Orthodox synagogues in his 20s and the independent Temple Beth Zion today, Dr. Golden is interested in historical and contemporary questions of Jewish pluralism. His professional career in the world of Jewish pluralism is a natural extension of his educational path.

In 2007, Dr. Golden was the recipient of Hebrew College’s Sydney Hillson Memorial Award for Distinguished Leadership in and Commitment to Jewish Education. In 2014, he received the AJC Boston Young Leadership Award. In 2018, he was given CJP’s Chai in the Hub award honoring the contributions of young professionals and lay leaders in the greater Boston Jewish community. He is a member of the Boston JCRC Board.

Dr. Golden lives in Brookline, MA with his wife and son, and serves as a Brookline Town Meeting member.