Rabbi Bob Kaplan is currently the founding Executive Director of The Center for Community Leadership, the Shared Society division of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York (JCRC).  The Center for Community Leadership seeks to honor the dignity of others is order to harness diversity as a value, engage diverse leaders from across New York City’s government, business, faith and not-for-profit sectors to help diverse communities thrive, prosper and create a better quality of life making a consistently changing New York City with a complex NEW DIVERSITY. The Center focuses on leadership in diversity, cultural humility, conflict prevention, coalition building and community building.

Rabbi Kaplan serves as a Commissioner for the New York City Commission on Human Rights. He is a member of Bronx Community Board 8.  Mr. Kaplan serves as a member of the Mayor’s PATH (Partners Against the Hate) Task Force.  He is a member of the Executive Committee for the Interfaith Coalition on Undoing Racism. He sits on the Advisory Board of the 67th Precinct Clergy Council (The God Squad) Brooklyn’s premier anti-gun violence initiative. He also sits on the steering committee of The Micah Interfaith Roundtable. He currently serves on the boards of the NYU-Brooklyn Medical Center, Family Health Centers at NYU- Langone, The Holocaust, Genocide and Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan College, the steering committee of the Faith-Based Anti-Racism Coalition and the Faith Advisory Committee of Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield/ Emblem Health. He likewise serves as a Clergy Liaison to the Chief of the Department of the New York Police Department (NYPD).

He served on the Transition Team for Mayor Eric Adams, NYC Department of Education’s Diversity Council, the Steering Committee of the New York State Census 2020 Coalition and Co-Chaired their Government Relations Committee and a consultant to the New York Women’s March Alliance. Rabbi Kaplan served as an adjunct professor in the Jewish Studies Department at The City College of New York where he conducted a course on the Jewish Immigrant Experience in New York City. He has likewise served on the Boards of Habitat for Humanity- NY, the Greater Brooklyn Health Coalition, DOHMH Hypertension Task Force and HealthPlus/HMO.

Under his leadership, the Center has been instrumental in developing and consulting to many community-based coalitions, leadership Fellowships and community building initiatives such as the YouthBridge-NY, We Are All New York, The We are All Brooklyn Fellowship Against Hate and the Women in Faith Fellowships. He has incubated the Brooklyn Coalition on Health Care Disparities, InterFaith United, The Interfaith Security Council, Project C.A.R.E. / One Crown Heights, the Greater Southern Brooklyn Health Coalition, the Queens Coalition for Immigrant Aging amongst others. He founded the Queens Forum and Institute at La Guardia Community College and the Bronx Center for Non – Profits at Hostos Community College. All of these groups are dedicated to improving the quality of life for all.

Under his tutelage YouthBridge-NY has been replicated in Munich (YouthBridge-Munich) and We Are All New York in Sydney Australia (We Are All Sydney).

Mr. Kaplan is called upon by the non-profit and government sectors and as an expert and consultant in the arena of diversity, community building, leadership development, coalitions, and intergroup relations. In February 2009, 2011 and again in 2019, Bob Kaplan, along with Mohammed Razvi, trained Jewish and Arab mediators and community leaders in the skills of coalition building, cultural competency and dignity work, in mixed cities in Israel on the behalf of the U.S. State Department. He also served as a consultant for the United Kingdom Foreign Office working with groups in London and Bristol on Muslim /Jewish Relations.  He was a part of a team of community and policing experts that traveled to Belfast, Northern Ireland to train and teach local community leaders and police officials as part of a U.S. State Department sponsored program. He has consulted to and lectured for the Jamaican Foreign Ministry, European Union and The Department of State of the United States on issues of diversity, ethnic media, coalition and community building, social change and responsibility in the media and community organizing. He also co-founded the New York – Jerusalem Experts Exchange, a joint project of the JCRC and the Jerusalem Intercultural Center that exchanges best practices in building diverse societies. He formally served as the Associate Executive Director of Hillel of New York and as Hillel Director at New York University, C.W. Post and Pace University. 

He serves as a mentor and fieldwork supervisor for Master of Social Work graduate students in the field of community organizing. He has been trained and certified by the Community Mediation Services, Inc. in mediation and conflict resolution.

As a member of the clergy, Bob Kaplan was a grief counselor for the American Red Cross assigned to working with relief workers at the respite center located at Ground Zero. He presented to President Clinton’s White House Conference on Race, The Doha Interfaith Dialogue Conference and was a member of the Plenary Committee for the United Nations Conference, Habitat II.  Mr. Kaplan served as a member of the Design Team and faculty member of the Institute for Public Health and Faith Collaborations, collaboration between the Rollins School of Health at Emory University and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia.  He likewise served as the coalition consultant to the Black/Jewish Congressional Coalition in Washington DC.

Rabbi Kaplan is married to Wendy Levinson and has three children and nine grandchildren.