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ADAM  D. FISHER

             Adam D. Fisher served as a Chaplain in the U.S. Navy, and as Rabbi in Lynchberg , VA 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 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 was awarded a Doctor of Hebrew Letters degree in 1971, and an Honorary Doctor of Divinity in 1992.  

          Rabbi Fisher is a writer and poet, whose poetry has appeared in a variety of Jewish and general literary journals. In 1990, he was the winner of the Jeanne Voege Poetry Prize, at the Westhampton Writer's Festival, and in 1991 he was the recipient of an Anna Davidson Rosenberg Award, presented by the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley , California , for poems on the Jewish experience.

            His short fiction has appeared in, "The Jewish Spectator," "Echoes," and "The Storyteller."

            Rabbi Fisher is also the author of two books of liturgy: “Seder Tu Bishevat, The Festival of Trees,” published in 1989 by the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and “An Everlasting Name, A Service For Remembering the Shoah,” published by Behrman House in 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.     

            He has also published many scholarly and professional articles, contributed to anthologies and done translations.  In 2006 he was named Poetry Editor of the CCAR Journal, a Jewish Quarterly,

            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 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 in Northern Brookhaven . He was honored twice by The Ministries in Coram, NY for his social activism. The Village Times-Herald newspaper honored him as “Man of the Year in Religion,” in 2002 and especially cited for his ability to involve others in social action projects.  

            He and his wife Eileen, a retired nursery school teacher, live in Stony Brook. They have two married daughters: Rachel, who is a teacher, and Deborah who is an artist. They have three granddaughters and a grandson.  He is an enthusiastic gardener, designer and builder of furniture, cyclist, kayaker, and cross-county skier.