Dan Leshem, Ph.D. will be taking the position of Director of Jewish Community Relations Council. His first duty in his role was joining the JEWISHcolorado Public Officials Mission that took 45 trip participants to Israel in May. He will start full time in the office starting this summer.

Dan brings a wealth of experience to his role. Over the past two decades, he has taught courses at prominent universities across the country, presented at conferences around the world, curated historical and fine art exhibits, and interviewed survivors of multiple genocides.

For the past four years, Dan has served as Executive Director of Hillel Florida State University. He is also the former Executive Director of the Kupferberg Holocaust Center at Queensborough Community College – CUNY in Queens, NY. Prior to that post, he served as Associate Director for Research of the Shoah Foundation and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Dan is an educator, scholar, organizational leader, and community builder.

From 2006-2010, Dan was Program Manager for the Holocaust Denial on Trial website (HDOT.org) at Emory University in Atlanta. HDOT was created in 2004 to archive the materials from Dr. Deborah Lipstadt’s Holocaust denial libel suit in England, which was recently dramatized in the film Denial.

He was born and raised in Los Angeles where his parents settled after they immigrated from Israel in the 1960s. He earned a B.A. in English and creative writing at UC Santa Cruz and a Master of Arts in English at SUNY Buffalo. He completed his Ph.D. in Jewish Studies and Comparative Literature at Emory University in Atlanta.  Dan and his family will relocate to Denver this summer.