Rabbi Victor Gross is Co-Founder of Yerusha, a congregational Rabbi, and educator dedicated to paradigm shifting. He received joint Rabbinic smicha [heb: ordination] in 1998 with his partner of over 50 years, Nadya Gross, from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and the P’nai Or religious fellowship, recognizing their unique relationship paradigm.

Reb Victor, originally from Spokane, Washington, earned his BA in History at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, in preparation to enter the Jewish Theological Seminary Rabbinical School. He then spent three years in New York and one in Israel as a Rabbinical student. While at JTS, Victor became a devoted student of his mentor, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. In Israel, he studied Contemporary Jewish History & Thought at the Hebrew University, and conducted research at Yad Vashem: The World Holocaust Remembrance Center. Victor was one of a group of students who chose to drop out of JTS shortly before their graduation, in protest of the institution’s lack of academic integrity.

After leaving the Seminary, he returned to Los Angeles, where he completed an MA in Social & Philosophic Foundations of Education; then later on to U.C. Berkeley, where he earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy of Education. His dissertation, Educating for Reverence: The Legacy of Abraham Joshua Heschel, was published by Windham Hall Press.

During his years in school, Victor was a teacher and youth activities coordinator in various Conservative Movement synagogues, and a counselor and director of Jewish camp programs. He also held High Holiday pulpits and was a much sought-after speaker for Jewish organizations. After he and Reb Nadya were married, while living in Israel, Victor was a lecturer in the Education Department at Haifa University.

Reb Victor was founding faculty and served on the Academic Vaad (Council) for the ALEPH Ordination Programs, where he was a Director of Studies for students in the Rabbinic Program and taught courses in Jewish History and Jewish Thought, with particular focus on Reb Zalman’s writings and Deep Ecumenism. Victor resigned in protest over institutional policy in 2020.

Victor is also the past Vice President of the professional association to which he remains a member, OHALAH: The Association of Rabbis and Cantors for Jewish Renewal. He served on the faculty and Academic Affairs committee of the Fox Institute for Creation Spirituality, and is also the founding Department Chair of Yerusha's Institute For Deep Ecumenism.

Victor co-founded Yerusha with Nadya and their two friends, Reb Bahira Sugarman and Rabbi Shaya Isenberg z’’l, in order to create and enhance programs inspired by the legacy of their mentor, Reb Zalman, and to carry their collective vision forward into the future.

Rabbis Victor and Nadya bring to their community-building work a spiritual and professional partnership of over 50 years. They have taught and offered counseling together, created communities in Israel, Los Angeles, Berkeley and Boulder, studied and grown together spiritually, shared the gift of four beautifully awesome children and one rascally grandchild, and are always learning what it means to be two halves of a whole – experiencing the joy and the responsibility that comes with that reality each and every day. They complement one another, weaving a tapestry of their individual strengths and abilities. Both are passionate teachers, and are particularly engaging when teaching together.