Josh Sharfman, a native of Los Angeles, grew up in the Beth Jacob community in the home of his parents, Ted and Ada Sharfman (z”l) who both dedicated their lives to Jewish education. From the age of seven, Josh developed a love for t’fillah, nusach, laining, and music under the unparalleled guidance of Binyamin Glickman (z”l), the Ba’al T’fillah at Beth Jacob, and the orchestra, choir, and laining teacher at Hillel, as well as the leader of the Los Angeles Jewish Youth Chorale, where Binyamin produced a generation of Ba’alei T’fillah who have extended throughout the United States and Israel. It is to Binyamin’s credit that this coterie of synagogue leaders has davened for the past half-century.

 

Over the past three decades BDJ has been the grateful recipient of Josh's passion for t'fillah and for nusach. Each of us can close our eyes and hear his voice leading Kol Nidre, praying for rain and for dew, and reading Kohellet and Shir HaShirim. Through these all of us have come to appreciate the deep commitment to nusach and the special devotion to the musical traditions of Poland/Lithuania (Minhag Polin) that Hazzan Glickman instilled in him.

 

Josh has invested his heart and soul in spreading and perpetuating all of these traditions through his internationally renowned website VirtualCantor.com, which consists of 725 different tracks covering the Tefillot of the weekdays, of Shabbat, and of all the Yamim Tovim.

 

Josh has worked with the California Association of REALTORS® for the last forty years as: a consultant; an outside board member of the Association’s Real Estate Business Services subsidiary; and for the last 19 years, as the Association’s Chief Technology and Innovation Officer. Prior to joining C.A.R. full-time, Josh led product development for a variety of privately held and public companies, including LRN, Digital Lava, ParcPlace-Digitalk, Dassault Systèmes USA, CADAM, and Hughes Aircraft. Josh holds six patents for software he developed, and he provides expert testimony for software patent and copyright infringement matters.

 

Josh’s parents deeply instilled an unescapable passion for education. Starting with teaching Hebrew School at Temple Emanual and directing the Halutz program for BJE for four years, this extended to Josh serving as an adjunct professor of engineering at the University of Southern California for nineteen years. Presently, Josh is in his eighth year of teaching computer science at Shalhevet.

 

Josh values the BDJ community as an extension of his home. He and Bonnie, a Camp Ramah couple, are proud of their children, Noah, Amanda and Max, Zach, Talia (another Camp Ramah couple), Ayla and Lev, Adam, and Erin and Moshe. Josh thanks the entire BDJ community for the opportunity to express one of his passions by serving as a Shaliach Tzibur.