Gary Pokras
Senior Rabbi

Rabbi Gary Pokras joined the Temple Beth Ami family in July 2016. Before coming to Beth Ami, he served a combined seventeen years as Rabbi at Temple Beth Zion in Buffalo, New York, and Temple Judea of Bucks County in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

As a young adult, Rabbi Pokras was more interested in pursuing a career as a classical and jazz guitarist than in being a Rabbi. Music being a deeply spiritual language, his focus turned from developing technique to communicating content, and thus he was drawn back to his spiritual tradition. Music continues to play an integral part of his rabbinate.

Rabbi Pokras is involved in every aspect of congregational life and has a special passion for teaching, worship, Israel, mental health, and inclusion. Over the course of his career, he has been blessed with the opportunity to help fundraise for and build a new synagogue, lead comprehensive synagogue re-visioning processes, champion the use of technology as a tool for study, worship and relationship development, and establish several interfaith justice initiatives (such as a Jewish-Christian-Muslim Mitzvah Day in response to 9/11 and a food pantry jointly administered by Catholic Charities and Temple Beth Zion). As an active leader in the larger community, he has represented his synagogues in a variety of ways including numerous interfaith councils, the Doylestown Hospital ethics committee, and the National Federation for Community Justice. In addition, for fifteen years he has served as a mentor for rabbinic students and rabbis.

Rabbi Pokras holds bachelor’s degrees from Northwestern University in Classical Guitar Performance and Economics, as well as master’s degrees from Southern Methodist University (which is ironically where he began to rediscover his Judaism) in Guitar Performance and Music Theory. His rabbinic training was at the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem and New York, where he earned a Master of Arts in Hebrew Letters and received his smichah (rabbinic ordination).

Rabbi Pokras, along with his wife Shauna and their children Stephanie and Nora, feel blessed to call Temple Beth Ami their home.