Rabbi Dov Fischer

Rabbi Dov Fischer became a Congregational Rabbi in Irvine, California in August 2005, when he assumed the role at Beth Jacob Congregation of Irvine. Rabbi Fischer arrived in “The O.C.” from the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, where he had been Rabbi of Young Israel of Calabasas since that shul’s inception.  In February 2008, sixty Beth Jacob membership households joined with Rabbi Fischer in establishing Orange County’s first new Orthodox Jewish congregation in more than twenty years:  Young Israel of Orange County.

  Rabbi Fischer is a nationally prominent Jewish leader and speaker, a member of the National Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America, the central body of the Modern Orthodox Rabbinate in the United States, and formerly of the Board of Directors of the Hillel Foundation of Orange County.  Previously, Rav Fischer served as National Vice President of the Zionist Organization of America.  

 Rabbi Fischer has been named by three different Governors of the Commonwealth of Kentucky — Gov. Brereton Jones, Gov. Paul Patton, and Gov. Ernie Fletcher — as an Honorary Kentucky Colonel for contributions he has made to the people and social welfare of that state. 

 Rabbi Fischer publishes social, political commentary in the Wall Street Journal ,the Los Angeles Times, the Weekly Standard, National Review Online, the Jerusalem Post, the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, the Jewish Press of New York, and Midstream .

Rabbi Fischer has served on a wide range of public community posts including as a National Vice President of the Zionist Organization of America, Board member of the L.A. Jewish Federation Council’s Jewish Community Relations Committee, member of the Los Angeles Yeshiva Principals’ Council, Executive Board member of the American Jewish Committee of Orange County, Executive Board member of the Bureau of Jewish Education of Orange County, Executive Board member of the Hillel Foundation of Orange County, and in other local and national capacities. 

After receiving his undergraduate degree at Columbia University, Rabbi Fischer studied at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) of Yeshiva University and was ordained a Rabbi in 1981. In 1983, Rabbi Fischer was awarded his master’s degree in American Jewish history. His master’s thesis was nationally honored by the American Jewish Historical Society and published in its scholarly quarterly,American Jewish History.

From 1985 to 1987, Rabbi Fischer lived in Israel. During that time, he also served as Assistant Director of the American High School at Pardes Hanna, cosponsored by the Los Angeles Jewish Federation Council’s Bureau of Jewish Education and by the Los Angeles Unified School District. He taught in the Overseas Program at Orot Women’s College for Torah Studies, guest lectured several times at Bar Ilan University for a course in Jewish Values taught to members of the Israeli Defense Forces, and he worked intimately with Ethiopian Jews at the Merkaz Klitah Absorption Center in Hadera.

Rabbi  Fischer received his Juris Doctor degree in 1993 at UCLA School of Law where he also was selected to serve as Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review. His Law Review Comment on a federal law affecting directors and officers of depository institutions has been cited in nine federal judicial opinions. The following year, Rabbi Fischer served as federal judicial appeals-court clerk to the Hon. Danny J. Boggs, who became Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Rabbi Fischer thereafter practiced complex business litigation for nearly a decade at three of America’s most prominent law firms.

  As part of his practice,Rabbi Fischer continues to contribute to American legal education today as Adjunct Professor of Law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, where he teaches California Civil Procedure and the Law of Complex Torts.