Clergy

Rabbi Daniel Kirzane

Daniel Kirzane began his tenure as the rabbi of KAM Isaiah Israel on July 1, 2024. Rabbi Kirzane is a passionate scholar and sensitive pastor, caring deeply about text and tradition as well as community and relationship. A proud Reform Jew, Rabbi Kirzane promotes open, equitable, and creative Jewish life that improves not only our congregation but the broader world in which we live. 

Originally from Roanoke, Virginia, Rabbi Kirzane grew up in an interfaith home. He began his path to the rabbinate in high school, eventually majoring in Jewish Studies and Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, where he also met his wife, Jessica. (Jessica Kirzner and Daniel Crane created their new surname, Kirzane, when they married in 2010.) Rabbi Kirzane committed a year to national service with the AmeriCorps program, City Year: Washington, D.C., before enrolling in rabbinical school at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC). While at HUC, Rabbi Kirzane earned an additional degree in Jewish education and engaged in a broad array of activities including coordinating the seminary's soup kitchen, staffing Reform trips to Israel, and interning at the CCAR Press. Rabbi Kirzane also earned the prestigious Wexner Graduate Fellowship and subsequently served as a chair of the fellowship's alumni council. After ordination from HUC in 2014, Rabbi Kirzane served pulpits in Mahwah, NJ; Overland Park, KS; and Oak Park, IL; and he is proud to have earned an MA in Religious Studies from the University of Chicago Divinity School, where he specialized in Hebrew Bible. Rabbi Kirzane currently serves as the chair of the HUC Alumni Leadership Council and serves on HUC's Board of Governors; he is also the vice president of the Chicago Association of Reform Rabbis. Rabbi Kirzane loves board games, travel, and--if you'll forgive the cliche--the Torah. He lives with Jessica and their two children in Hyde Park.