Rabbi Owen Gottlieb is the Founder and Director of ConverJent which nurtures, develops, and spreads "Seriously Fun" Games for Jewish Learning. Founded in 2010, ConverJent is incubated at Clal in Manhattan and has been awarded a PresenTense NYC Fellowship. In 2012, ConverJent received a Signature Grant from the Covenant Foundation to fund the design and development of a digital mobile game/simulation for teaching Jewish history.

Rabbi Gottlieb is a Jim Joseph Fellow and Ph.D. candidate at NYU in Education and Jewish Studies specializing in Digital Medial and Games for Learning and a HASTAC Scholar.

With an eclectic background prior to the rabbinate, Rabbi Gottlieb has worked in project management of Internet software for companies including Disney and screen and teleplay writing for Paramount and Universal. He has taught dance in Israel, and served for many years as a liaison for film directors at Telluride Film Festival.

A co-founder and steering committee member of the Brooklyn independent volunteer led minyan, Shir HaMaalot, Rabbi Gottlieb has served as a student rabbi at Temple Beth Am, in Monessen PA, Temple Shaaray Tefila in Manhattan, and a rabbinic resident at the URJ Press. While studying to become a rabbi, Owen taught religious school for four years at Central Synagogue in Manhattan, where he piloted the teaching of modern Hebrew to seventh graders using Israeli teen-television. In 2012 he taught Game Design for Torah for fifth graders at East End Temple in Manhattan.

Rabbi Gottlieb holds an AB from Dartmouth College, and MA from USC Cinema-Television. He received an MAHL and rabbinical ordination from HUC-JIR, New York. He is a member of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Writers Guild of America, West, and the International Game Developers Association. He blogs at www.mysticalcreative.com

Selected publications and press:

Huffington Post Article and Video: Torah Games? Bringing Torah to Life Through Game Design by Joshua Stanton

Covenant Foundation Signature Grant Award Announcement for ConverJent


Sh’ma Article: Video Games, Game Design, and 21st-Century Jewish Education

Moving Beyond the Limited Reach of Current "Social Media" Approaches: Why Jewish Digital Communities Require Rich and Remixable Narrative Content

You Can’t Wrap Herring in an iPad: Digitization of Sacred Jewish Books, the Stripping of Embodied Ritual, and Implications for Jewish Education