Jeremy Burton, CEO
Jeremy Burton joined the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston in October 2011, after playing leadership roles in many Jewish organizations as well as government and political campaigns. Under Jeremy’s leadership, JCRC has thrived as a national model for community relations, with a core mission of building a network of Jewish organizations that is a leader in the public square, connected through enduring partnerships beyond our community in service to Jewish concerns
and the collective good.
Under his leadership, JCRC spearheaded a Jewish communal response to stand with our immigrant neighbors in the face of detention and deportation by creating a robust interfaith network to provide sanctuary, court accompaniment, pro bono legal assistance, and bond funds to targeted immigrants. His vision for American engagement with and support for grassroots civil society activists laid the foundation for JCRC and CJP’s joint initiative, Boston Partners for Peace, an innovative model to promote the work of shared-society organizations in Israel and the Palestinian Areas and connect them with the Boston community. More recently, JCRC led advocacy efforts to create Massachusetts’s ‘first-in-the-nation’ legislatively established Commission on Combatting Antisemitism, on which he served as a commissioner.
Jeremy is a national thought leader, writing and speaking widely about the challenges and opportunities facing the Jewish community. As a gay and Mexican-American Jew, he brings a unique and valuable perspective to the issue of inclusion across the diversity of our Jewish community. He has been published in the Boston Globe, Sapir, JTA, Times of Israel, New York Jewish Week, Forward, Jerusalem Post, and the Washington Post. In 2025, Jeremy was named at the JFNA General Assembly as an inaugural recipient of the Grinspoon Amber Award honoring outstanding professionals in the Jewish communal field.
Previously, Jeremy was the Senior Vice President of Programs at the Jewish Funds for Justice, and Vice President of Programs at the Jewish Funders Network. Jeremy came to the Jewish community from a career in political strategy and public communications, having worked for New York Mayor David N. Dinkins, Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger, the 1996 Clinton/Gore Re-Election Campaign, and the New York State legislature & Attorney General, among others.
Jeremy recently finished his service as a member of the Massachusetts Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism, a first-in-the-nation legislatively established intervention in this area. Jeremy has served on several boards and in many volunteer leadership roles, including as a founding board member and then co-chair of Darkhei Noam, the first ‘partnership’ minyan in the United States, in New York City. He was a founding board member of Bikkurim, an incubator for new Jewish ideas that is now part of UpStart, and a founding national board member of Keshet, working for the full inclusion of all LGBTQ Jews in Jewish life. He currently serves on the board of the American Friends of Givat Haviva and as an Advisor for the Mandel Institute Executive Leadership Program.