Rabbi Joshua Hess

Rabbi Joshua Hess is an Orthodox congregational rabbi, a youth counselor and an accidental writer. When he realized that his dreams of playing professional basketball weren’t meant to be, Rabbi Hess pursued ordination at the Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore. He later became the Rabbi of the DAT Minyan in Denver, during which time he pursued a Master’s Degree in Pastoral Care from the Iliff School of Theology. In 2009, Rabbi Hess 'took his talents' to Central New Jersey and accepted a post as the rabbi of Congregation Anshe Chesed in Linden, NJ.

Rabbi Hess spends hours each week pouring over Biblical texts – and a similar number of hours reading the sports section and other areas of popular culture. To merge these passions, he created two blogs: The Fanatic Rabbi, in which he extracts religious lessons from the sports page, and most recently, Pop Jewish, an interdenominational blog highlighting Jewish themes and values found within pop culture. He is a frequent contributor to the Huffington Post, New Jersey Jewish News, and Jewish World Review. Rabbi Hess is married to his beautiful wife, Naava, and they are the proud parents of four children.