David Zaslow moved to Ashland, Oregon in 1970 where he completed his Master’s degree with a focus on creative writing and education. In the early 1970’s he worked as a full-time poet-in-the-schools, funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. During that period he wrote and edited books of poetry, language arts textbooks, teacher’s guides, and recorded two albums of children’s poetry set to music. He was awarded an American Book Award in 1988 for educational materials for an album he produced called Shakin’ Loose with Mother Goose, featuring Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows. But with all the wonders of family, poetry, and music in his life something was missing – a deep, personal connection to G-d he felt the call to study to become a rabbi. He was ordained in 1995 by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi in the Jewish Renewal movement and he’s been the spiritual leader of Havurah Shir Hadash Synagogue in Ashland since that time. Before the pandemic, he traveled around the country leading interfaith workshops in synagogues and churches. Rabbi Zaslow is the author of “Jesus: First-Century Rabbi”, which was awarded the Church Synagogue Library Association Book of the Year. In 2017, his book “Reimagining Exodus” was published. He is currently working on a book about how metaphors and anthropomorphic images of G-d shape our thinking about divinity.
