Rabbi Eliot Baskin
Associate Rabbi
Rabbi Eliot J. Baskin, D.Min, DD, is the part time Associate Rabbi of Temple Emanuel in Denver, Colorado. Previously he served for two decades as Denver’s Jewish Community Chaplain and the Rabbinic Director of Rafael: Spiritual Healing Center as part of Jewish Family Service of Colorado. He served as past President of the Rocky Mountain Rabbinic Council. He enjoys teaching Philosophy for Argosy University, volunteering as a chaplain for the Denver Police Department and the United States Secret Service, and leading Jewish holiday services for cruises on the chai seas.
He graduated from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1985. He wrote his thesis on “The Development of Progressive Judaism in Australia” after serving liberal congregations in New Zealand and Australia as a student rabbi. Following ordination he served as the Jewish chaplain at the Mayo Clinic where he completed a residency in Clinical Pastoral education. He previously served congregations in Rochester, Minnesota, Fort Collins, Colorado, Glastonbury, Connecticut and Evergreen and Durango, Colorado as well as recently volunteering to lead Holy Days services in Guatemala, Myanmar and Bali.
As he sees relationship to be at the heart of his rabbinate, he became the first rabbi to earn the Doctor of Ministry degree in Pastoral Care and Counseling in 1993 at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York where he did his demonstration project in the use of Sacred Stories for Patients with AIDS.
Originally from Toronto, Rabbi Baskin lives in Greenwood Village with his wife, Hilary, an orthodontist, where they practice “brachas (blessings) and braces.” They are blessed with two sons, Jonah who works as a legislative aide at the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism in Washington, DC and Gabriel a Junior at Emory University in Atlanta who share their passion for skiing, biking, reading, magic, theatre and travel, and of course, everything Jewish!