Marc Gary

Marc Gary served as executive vice chancellor and chief operating officer of JTS from May 2012 to August 2020 and continues to serve as a member of the Board of Trustees. As executive vice chancellor, Mr. Gary was responsible for the day-to-day operations of the institution and supervised all non-academic functions. He served as a member of the Chancellor’s Cabinet and  participated in the establishment of strategy and overall direction for JTS.

While at JTS, Mr. Gary spearheaded the planning and construction of the 21st Century Campus. Completed in 2020, the project was built to meet the needs of current and future generations by reimagining the historic campus as a dynamic hub for Jewish learning and living, for building community, and for exchanging ideas with the world around it. The campus includes a new residence hall, a state-of-the-art library and performance space, and a light-filled atrium designed to serve as a social and intellectual crossroads for the JTS community and all those who visit.

During his tenure, Mr. Gary instituted the JTS Seeds of Innovation program, which provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to JTS alumni engaged in innovative initiatives on behalf of the Jewish community. He also oversaw the dramatic increase in community education and professional development programs at JTS and participated in the creation and rapid growth of Nishma, the summer program in the JTS Beit Midrash. He represented JTS on the boards of various Conservative Movement organizations and facilitated the move of several of those organizations to the JTS campus.

Mr. Gary has been involved in the Conservative Movement and the Jewish community his entire life, beginning at age 17 with his role as international president of United Synagogue Youth, and continuing with board appointments at JTS, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the Leadership Conference for Conservative Judaism, and as a lay member of the Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards. He is a member of the board of directors of UJA-Federation of New York and previously served on the boards of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, American Friends of the Hebrew University, Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston, and Weber Jewish Community High School of Atlanta.

Prior to JTS, Mr. Gary  had a distinguished career in the law, serving as executive vice president and general counsel of Fidelity Investments, one of the world’s largest financial services firms, and as executive vice president and general counsel of BellSouth Corporation, a Fortune 100 telecommunications company. For more than 20 years, Mr. Gary was a partner and national litigation practice co-chair in the Washington, DC, office of Mayer Brown & Platt, an international law firm. During the early 1990s, he was appointed associate independent counsel in the U.S. Office of the Independent Counsel, where he investigated and prosecuted allegations of cabinet-level criminal activity.

Mr. Gary  currently serves on the boards of the Neuberger Berman Mutual Funds, Legility, an alternative legal services provider, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. He is also an elected member of the American Law Institute. He is a member of the advisory board of Equal Justice Works, and formerly served as chair of the Corporate Counsel Institute of the Georgetown University Law Center, and on the boards of the Boston Bar Foundation and Greater Boston Legal Services.

Mr. Gary earned his bachelor of arts degree with highest distinction at Northwestern University, and his juris doctor degree at Georgetown University Law Center. He also studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Among his many awards, he received the first Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall Award, presented by the American Constitution Society for Law and Justice, “for commitment to equality for all, dedication to justice under law, and devotion to public integrity.” He also received a special commendation from the Supreme Court of Georgia in recognition of his “outstanding service” to the administration of justice, recognizing him as an “accomplished jurist, passionate humanitarian, and enthusiastic community servant.”

Mr. Gary has contributed a number of times to JTS’s weekly Torah commentaries.