Rabbi Daniel Epstein

Rabbi Daniel Epstein is the Senior Rabbi at The Western Marble Arch Synagogue in London’s West End. He has been serving the community together with his wife Ilana since March 2021. Born and raised in London, Rabbi Daniel married Ilana Spitz (from New York), moved to Israel and he began working for New York PR firm Ruder Finn; after which he established his own PR firm, servicing over 40 government, corporate, technology and non-profit clients. He represented and advised key Jewish community leaders in their various roles within theJewish community and broader non-profit and NGO functions in Israel, UK, USA, and Europe. He represented JNF UK in Israel, and secured international broadcast, print and electronic media coverage for clients in multiple languages.

Completing his semicha in 2012, Rabbi Epstein moved back to London in 2014 with his family, to take the helm of the 1,200-member Cockfosters & North Southgate Synagogue community. Rabbi Epstein runs adult education programmes in Torah, political, social and economic thought; teaches Holocaust education to Jewish and non-Jewish groups, and works to raise awareness of mental health challenges in the Jewish community. He initiated the “Mental Health Awareness Shabbat” in 2017, which has now been adopted by over 180 synagogues, universities, and Jewish institutions in the UK. He is involved in interfaith dialogue, having participated in and hosted debates with senior faith leaders in the UK and Europe; and was invited as the keynote speaker in 2023 to the Russian Byzantine Catholic Congress in Velehrad, Czech Republic. He is a regular guest on BBC Radio and teaches at Christian and Muslim faith schools.

Rabbi Epstein has been the rabbinic governor of JFS School – Europe’s largest Jewish high school, with over 2,000 students – since 2016. He is a lead rabbinic educator for the Holocaust Educational Trust’s “Lessons from Auschwitz” programme that takes over 3,500 non-Jewish high school students to Poland each year on one-day trips, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government. He and Ilana have also, individually and as a team, led programmes for the Office of the Chief Rabbi to Ghana, India and Rwanda, educating Jewish students and future community leaders on the challenges of Global Development, NGOs, poverty and social & political development.

In 2023, Rabbi Epstein & Ilana were individually selected for the inaugural cohort of Sacks Scholars – a group of 26 international communal educators and leaders convened by the Rabbi Sacks Legacy to develop Rabbi Sacks zt”l's ideas and continue to disseminate his Torah philosophies and teachings, after his untimely passing. In February 2024, Rabbi Daniel & Ilana Epstein hosted HRH The Prince of Wales, Prince William, at his first ever visit to a synagogue in the UK, to discuss Holocaust memorial, the challenges in Israel and to the UK Jewish community, and the student unrest on campuses in the UK.

Rabbi Epstein studied at Yeshivat Har Etzion in Israel under Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein and Rabbi Yehudah Amital and, subsequently, received semicha from Rabbi Aharon Ziegler of Kollel Agudat Achim/Orayta, followed by a year at the Straus-Amiel post-ordination Rabbinics School, under Rabbi Shlomo Riskin. Rabbi Epstein holds a BSc (Hons) ARCS in Chemistry and Management Science from Imperial College London. He and Ilana have four children.