Rabbi Gilbert Kollin

Rabbi Kollin was born in Brooklyn, New York and graduated from Brooklyn College with a degree in Sociology. While in college he served as President of the Hillel Foundation and was active in the Student Zionist Organization, of which he eventually became national president.

After graduation, he studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, graduating as a Rabbi and a Master of Hebrew Letters. As part of his studies, he spent a year in Israel at the Hebrew University. Upon graduation in 1961, he entered the United States Air Force as a Chaplain. After four years of active duty in Mississippi and Turkey, he remained in the active reserve until his retirement in 1989 as a lieutenant colonel.

In his almost five decades in the rabbinate, Rabbi Kollin served congregations in Washington State, Florida and Michigan. He also served as Director of the Chaplaincy Commission of the National Jewish Welfare Board, which endorsed and assisted Jewish chaplains in the armed forces and at Veteran Administration hospitals.

Rabbi Kollin has served at various times on the Executive Council of the Rabbinical Assembly and as Jewish chaplain for the Boy Scouts of America at jamborees here and abroad. He has also had been active in many Jewish communal organizations in the communities in which he ministered as rabbi. He has written extensively for a variety of Jewish publications. In addition, he has performed Chaplaincy duties in hospitals and nursing homes in the many communities in which he has lived.

Rabbi Kollin has been a resident of California since 1980 and Rabbi of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center from 1989 through his retirement in August of 2003. He has been active on the Board of Rabbis of Southern California and was elected to the Presidency in May 1999 and served through 2001. Rabbi Kollin is the Jewish Chaplain for the City of Hope, serves on the Institutional Review Board of the Glendale Adventist Medical Center and the Charity Care Committee of the City of Hope. He is a chaplain for the Pasadena Police Department.

Rabbi Kollin is married to Yona Kollin, a psychotherapist in private practice. They have three adult children and five grandchildren.