Union Temple of Brooklyn

Biography of Rabbi A. Stanley Dreyfus




A native of Youngstown, Ohio, Rabbi A. Stanley Dreyfus graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1942, earning a B.A. degree with high honors in Classics, and a membership in Phi Beta Kappa. In 1946 he was ordained by the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, and also received a Master of Hebrew Letters degree. For the next three years he taught Liturgy at HUC as a Heinsheimer Fellow, and served as Director of the College Reference Department. From 1948 to1950, he acted as counselor to the Interfaith Program. In 1951, Rabbi Dreyfus earned a Ph.D. in Theology from HUC, and in 1971, he was awarded an honorary D.D. degree from Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion.
From 1946 to1950, Rabbi Dreyfus served as Rabbi of Congregation Beth El in Beaver Falls, PA. During the summers of 1949, 1950, and 1951, he served as Visiting Minister at the West London Synagogue in London, England. From 1950 to1951 he was Rabbi of Congregation B'nai Israel in East Liverpool, OH. From 1951 to 1956, he served as Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregation in Terra Haute, IN, and from 1956 to 1965, of Congregation B'nai Israel of Galveston, TX. In 1965, Dr. Dreyfus was called to the pulpit of Union Temple of Brooklyn, and served our congregation with love, devotion, and extraordinary distinction for the next fourteen years. Upon his retirement in 1979, he became our Rabbi Emeritus, which, God willing, he will remain for a very long time to come.
In 1979, Rabbi Dreyfus succeeded Rabbi Malcolm Stern, z.l., as Director of Placement for the Joint Placement Commission of the Reform Movement, assuming the responsibility for placing a whole generation of Reform Rabbis. He is now the Director Emeritus.
Rabbi Dreyfus holds the position of Lecturer in Commentaries on the faculty of the Hebrew Union CollegeJewish Institute of Religion 's New York Campus. He has been a contributor to numerous journals and periodicals, among them: The Synagogue Review, the HUC Monthly, the CCAR Yearbook and Journal, Sh'ma, Reform Judaism, Religion in Life, and Worte des Gedenkens Fuer Leo Baeck. He edited the Book of Prayers for the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods (Women of Reform Judaism), published a book entitled Henry Cohen: Messenger of the Lord, and prepared Parents and Children for the Department of Adult Education of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. As the Chairman of the CCAR Liturgy Committee from 1975 to 1979, he was instrumental in the publishing of a whole series of new prayerbooks for the Reform Movement, including: Gates of Prayer, Gates of Repentance, Gates of Understanding, and Gates of the House.
Among his other activities he holds memberships in the Shriners, the Elks, and the Masons (32nd degree). He was a Chaplain for the United States Army in the 1950's, and continued for some 21 years as an active reservist.
By far, his greatest accomplishment in life has been his almost 50 year marriage to Marianne Berlak Dreyfus, which has produced two outstanding sons; James NathanielDreyfus, M.D., and Richard Baeck Dreyfus, J.D., and has further yielded two equally outstanding daughters-in-law; Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus, and Helen Bagot, J.D. The Dreyfus's also derive boundless enjoyment and nachas from their four grandchildren, Benjamin, Lina, David, and Daniel, and with God's help, their fifith, expected next fall.
All of us in the Union Temple family are grateful to have an Emeritus of the stature of Rabbi Dreyfus. We respect him and admire him, we laugh at his jokes, and above all, we love him.


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