>>> ABOUT MARC
WILSON
MARC HOWARD WILSON is a rabbi, syndicated columnist and community relations and organizational design consultant.
He has served as a congregational rabbi for three decades, holding pulpits in Chicago, Atlanta, Charlotte and Greenville, South Carolina. His essays have been published in Reader’s Digest, the Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Tribune, Charlotte Observer, San Francisco Examiner, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Greenville News, Asheville Citizen-Times, Jüdische Allgemeine (Germany), Men's Health Magazine and New York Jewish Week. His column is syndicated by Religion News Service and has been distributed by Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and BeliefNet.
He has been the monthly back-page columnist for Greenville Magazine and writes a regular column for the Internet magazines Jewsweek (“Wilson’s Wisdom”) and culinary commentary in the international edition of eGullet (“Rabbi Ribeye”). His website, Marc Musing, has a large and devoted international readership.
His speaking engagements have brought him to such diverse venues as church and synagogue scholar-in-residence programs, keynote addresses at Clemson University, Furman University, the South Carolina United Methodist Church Convention, a variety of civic and religious groups, and numerous Jewish communities under the aegis of the United Jewish Communities’ Speakers Bureau. His consulting assignments have involved various Chambers of Commerce, Civic and Industry Associations. He also delivers workshops in effective writing and speaking, primarily for recently-ordained clergy.
He is a summa cum laude graduate of DePaul University (Chicago) and was ordained by the Hebrew Theological College (Chicago), from which he also holds a Bachelor of Hebrew Literature degree and Hebrew teacher and principal certificates. He has also served as a Graduate Fellow at the Chicago Institute of Pastoral Care.
Wilson is the founder of two synagogue-based homeless shelters and has served in a variety of organizations, including Charlotte Area Clergy Association (Chair), Urban Training Organization of Atlanta (Co-Chair), Mayor’s Religious Advisory Committee (Co-Chair), Metrolina AIDS Consortium, Joint Urban Ministries, Bioethics Resource Group, Presbyterian/Mercy Hospitals’ Clinical Review Committee and advisor to two Clinical Pastoral Education programs. For his efforts and work with the homeless, he was named Community Servant of the Year by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In Greenville, he is the founder of Faith Communities United, the first interfaith-interracial coalition in the Upstate of South Carolina, the Interfaith Coalition for Social Justice and the Jewish Chaplaincy of the Upstate. He has been named one of Greenville’s 50 most influential leaders.
He chaired the city’s first two interfaith/interracial service to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and worked with Greenville County Council on declaring Dr. King’s birthday an official holiday. For these efforts, he received the African American Charity Coalition’s annual Human Relations Award, the first non-African American to be so honored.
Wilson's wife, Linda, is Program Director of the Upstate Homeless Coalition. He is exceptionally proud of their blended family of eight children and children-in-law, who include physicians, an IBM technologist, a marketing director, gerontologist and culinary student. None of this overshadows his boundless pride and love for his grandchildren.
Beside his children and grandchildren, Wilson considers his greatest accomplishment having put his career on hold for five years to become the primary caregiver to his homebound parents. . . and making a kickin’ kosher gumbo and jambalaya.