Adam Weiss has been named the board president for the Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara.
Adam Weiss is the new president of the Board of Directors for the Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara.
Mr. Weiss has served on the Federation’s board since 2018 and previously was the vice president and chair of the Jewish Community Relations Committee and chair of the Annual Campaign Committee. He accepted the president position at the Federation’s annual meeting on Jan. 19.
Mr. Weiss, 55, has been active in Jewish community affairs on local, regional and national levels since high school in his native New Jersey, and during his subsequent residence in Houston.
His college thesis, “The Decline and Rise of Jewish Life in Argentina, 1970-1987,” won Princeton University’s Latin American Studies Program Senior Thesis Prize in 1988.
In 2007, he founded a Jewish community umbrella organization in Hudson County, N.J., and spearheaded its eventual incorporation into the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey.
A Santa Barbara resident since 2016, Mr. Weiss is an executive recruiter specializing in placing lawyers.
“Most of what I do professionally is ‘outreach,’ and that is one of my priorities for the Federation in coming months,” Mr. Weiss said in a statement. “Our Santa Barbara community sees a constant influx of newcomers, and many of them are Jewish. We need to raise our profile among such newcomers, connect with them on a personal level, and help them find their place in the local Jewish community.”
“Santa Barbara has been such a welcoming place to discover, and despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Jewish Federation of Greater of Santa Barbara is still the ‘home address’ and hub for discovering Jewish life here,” Mr. Weiss said.
Other Federation officers are Alan Levy, immediate past president Lauren Katz, vice President; Joan Rothenberg, treasurer; Ron Zonen, secretary; and Rena Brawer, member-at-large.
email: dmason@newspress.com
