Rachel Bluwstein Sela (1890 – 1931) was a Hebrew-language poet who immigrated to Palestine in 1909. She is known by her first name, Rachel, or as Rachel the Poetess. Born in Saratov in Imperial Russia, the eleventh daughter of Isser-Leib and Sophia Bluwstein, and granddaughter of the rabbi of the Jewish community in Kiev. During her childhood, h...
Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein is a senior staff member at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish advocacy group and international NGO. He holds the Sydney M. Irmas Adjunct Chair in Jewish Law and Ethics at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. He is a frequent spokesperson for Torah Judaism in the secular media, and writes prolifically for a wide spectr...
S.Y. Agnon (1888–1970) was the central figure of modern Hebrew literature, and the 1966 Nobel Prize laureate for his body of writing. Born in the Galician town of Buczacz (in today’s western Ukraine), as Shmuel Yosef Czaczkes, he arrived in 1908 in Jaffa, Ottoman Palestine, where he adopted the penname Agnon and began a meteoric rise as a young ...
RABBI YEHUDA AMITAL (1924–2010) was raised in pre-Holocaust Hungary, where he spent his youth immersed in yeshiva study. At the age of nineteen, he was deported to a Nazi labor camp and emerged as the sole survivor of his family. Upon his liberation, he made his way to the Land of Israel. Fulfilling a promise that if he survived he would study T...
Rabbi Dr. Marc D. Angel is Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York City. He currently directs the institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, which fosters an intellectually vibrant, compassionate and inclu¬sive Orthodox Judaism. The author and editor of twenty-seven books, he is co-founder of the Inter¬national Rabbinic Fellowship...
Rabbi Hayyim Angel is the National Scholar of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals and the Rabbinic Scholar at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York. He has taught advanced Bible courses to undergraduate, graduate, and rabbinical students at Yeshiva University since 1996, and lectures widely. Rabbi Angel has published over 120 scholarl...
Aharon Appelfeld is one of Israel's foremost living Hebrew-language authors, despite the fact that he did not learn the language until he was a teenager. His mother tongue is German, but he also understands Yiddish, Ukrainian, Russian, English and Italian. With his subject matter revolving around the Holocaust and the sufferings of the Jews in E...
Professor Eliyahu Asis is the author of books on Joshua, Judges, Song of Songs, Joel, and on the relationship between Edom and Israel. A member of the Tanakh faculty at Bar-Ilan University, Professor Asis served as the dean of the Jewish Studies faculty, and the head of the Tanakh department.
M. R. (Rhonda) Attar (nee Antelman) was born and educated in the U.S. (M.S. TV/Radio) and made Aliyah to Israel where she became a leading figure in the Israeli television industry launching ten TV channels—six in Israel and four worldwide. Mrs. Attar and her husband Rabbi Meir Attar are the co-founders and directors of the Tomer Devorah Beit Kn...
Yehuda Avner (1928 - 2015) served as adviser and English speechwriter to Israeli Prime Ministers Rabin, Begin, Meir and Eshkol. He is a former Israeli Ambassador to Britain, Ireland and Australia, and served in diplomatic positions at the Israeli Consulate in New York and the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC. Ambassador Avner was born in Manche...
Rav Amnon Bazak studied at the Netiv Meir Yeshiva High School in Jerusalem and then came to study at Yeshivat Har Etzion. In the context of the Hesder Program, he served in the military rabbinate, and has received Semicha and earned a Bachelor of Education degree from the Herzog College. Rav Bazak served as a Ram at Netiv Meir Yeshiva High Schoo...
Simcha H. Benyosef is the author of a significant collection of works written with the intention to elucidate esoteric aspects of Torah’s inner teachings. As a Jerusalem resident, Benyosef has been blessed to learn directly from such imminent Torah scholars as Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, zt’l, and Rabbi Raphael Moshe Luria, zt’l, whose primary contribu...
Micha Josef Berdyczewski (1865 – 1921), was a Ukrainian-born writer of Hebrew, a journalist, and a scholar. He appealed for the Jews to change their way of thinking, freeing themselves from dogmas ruling the Jewish religion, tradition and history, but is also known for his work with pre-modern Jewish myths andlegends. He wrote in Hebrew, Yiddish...
David Berger is Ruth and I. Lewis Gordon Professor of Jewish History and Dean at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies of Yeshiva University.
RABBI DR. ELIEZER BERKOVITS (1908–1992) is widely ranked among the most important Jewish philosophers of the twentieth century. Born in Romania and educated at the famous Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary, he received a PhD in philosophy from the University of Berlin. He held rabbinical positions in Germany, England, Australia, and the United Sta...
Rahel Berkovits is a senior lecturer in Mishnah, Talmud, and halakhah at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, where she has been teaching for almost twenty years. She writes articles and lectures widely both in Israel and abroad on topics concerning women and Jewish law. Rahel is a founding member of Congregation Shira Hadasha, a...
Rav Ezra Bick a Ram at Yeshivat Har Etzion since his aliya from New York in 1977, currently teaches a second-year shiur for Israeli students. He is Director of the Yeshiva's Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash Project, with more than 20 shiurim on varying levels reaching tens of thousands of individuals worldwide. Rav Bick earned his Semicha ...
Rabbi Yoel Bin-Nun is one of the founders of Yeshivat Har Etzion and Herzog College. His teachings and writings have contributed greatly to the Tanakh study revolution in Israel.
Ariel Blacher and her family made Aliyah from Riverdale, N.Y., in 2006, with the help of Nefesh b'Nefesh. Gila Makes Aliyah is Blacher’s first book. The author drew upon her own family’s Aliyah experience in the writing of her book, in the hope it would assist other families prepare for and experience all the richness of the Aliyah process. Bla...
Benjamin Blech, born in Zurich in 1933, is an Orthodox rabbi who now lives in New York City. Rabbi Blech has been a Professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University since 1966, and was the Rabbi of Young Israel of Oceanside for 37 years. In addition to his work in the rabbinate, Rabbi Blech has written many books on Judaism and the Jewish people, inclu...
Rabbi J. David Bleich is a Rosh Yeshiva and Rosh Kollel le-Hora’ah at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and Herbert and Florence Tenzer Professor of Law and Ethics at Yeshiva University. He has served as visiting Gruss Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law...
Gerald J. Blidstein is Professor Emeritus at Ben-Gurion University, where he served as Hubert Professor of Jewish Law and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Dr. Ernst Israel Bornstein was born in Zawiercie, a city in the Silesian province of southern Poland (60 km from Auschwitz) on the 26 November 1922. He was the oldest of four children. He was educated in Jewish schools and won a national essay prize at the age of fifteen. He was incarcerated in seven concentration camps, enduring the infamous “d...
Rabbi Yehuda Brandes has headed Beit Morasha, the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies and Leadership in Jerusalem, since 1998, and serves as the academic director for the Center's Robert M. Beren College. He is also a lecturer at the Herzog College in Alon Shvut, was among the founders of the Ma'aleh School of Television, Film and the Arts, and f...
Yosef Haim Brenner (1881–1921) was a Russian-born Hebrew-language author and one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew literature. In 1902, Brenner was drafted into the Russian army. Two years later, when the Russo-Japanese War broke out, he deserted. He was initially captured, but escaped to London with the help of the General Jewish Labor Bund, whi...
Paul Brief was born in Romania and educated at Lycée Charlemagne in Paris and Columbia College in New York City. He received his MD from New York Medical College, then trained in orthopedic surgery at Manhattan's prestigious NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases in the 1960s. In 1965, he was commissioned as a United States Naval Officer. In 1969, he w...
Rabbi David Brofsky has taught Talmud and halakha in yeshivot and seminaries in Israel, including Yeshivat Har Etzion and Michlelet Mevaseret Yerushalyim. He currently teaches in Midreshet Torah V’Avodah, is a senior faculty member at Midreshet Lindenbaum, and writes a weekly halakha shiur for the Virtual Beit Midrash (VBM). He studied at Yeshi...
Dr. Erica Brown is the Vice Provost for Values and Leadership at Yeshiva University and the founding director of its Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks–Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership. She previously served as the director of the Mayberg Center for Jewish Education and Leadership at The George Washington University and as the Scholar-in-Resid...
Nechama Sarah Gila Nadborny Burgeman holds a Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi degree in cultural anthropology, with a minor in art history. After traveling the world, Nechama settled in Israel where she attended yeshivas in Safed and Jerusalem, learning from a large array of great teachers. A chassida of the Nadvorna Rebbe zt”l from Bnei Brak, N...
Rabbi Yosef Carmel is head of the Eretz Hemdah Institute for Advanced Jewish Studies in Jerusalem and Av Beit Din of the Eretz Hemdah / Gazit rabbinical court.
RABBI YUVAL CHERLOW is rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Amit Orot Shaul in Israel. He is a graduate of Yeshivat Har Etzion, ordained by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, a retired major in the IDF, and a founding member of the non-profit rabbinical organization Tzohar. He has published many books and articles on topics in halakha, biblical exegesis, modern J...
Daniel Chertoff worked in the investment industry in both the United States and Israel as an analyst, as financial communications counsel, and as a venture capitalist. Before discovering the cache of letters, he was happily writing his doctoral dissertation in English literature at the Hebrew University. He is an associate editor of Partial Answ...
Dr. Adam S. Cohen is Associate Professor in the Department of the History of Art at the University of Toronto, where he has served as the Assistant Director of the university’s Centre for Jewish Studies and has introduced courses on Jewish art. Originally from New York, Adam attended Columbia University as an undergraduate and then completed his...
DR. GABRIEL H. COHN is an educator and biblical scholar at Bar Ilan University, specializing in literary exegesis of the Bible and the study of midrashic commentaries. In addition to his scholarly work, Dr. Cohn was the long-time head of Machon Gold, a teacher’s college for women for the Diaspora. Through his teaching and writing, he has contrib...
Levi Cooper is an Orthodox Jewish teacher, author, and community leader who lives in Tzur Hadassah, Israel. He is a faculty member of the Pardes Institute for Jewish Studies in Jerusalem [1] where he teaches Talmud, Rambam, and Hasidism. Originally from Australia, Cooper lectures extensively on the topics of law and Halakha, Jewish spirituality ...
Rabbi Pini Dunner hails from a prominent German rabbinic dynasty that miraculously survived the Holocaust and reestablished itself in London, England. He is an acknowledged expert on antiquarian Hebrew books and manuscripts and is frequently consulted by libraries, academics, dealers, and private collectors. Rabbi Dunner currently serves as the ...
Zlata Ehrenstein was born in Brooklyn, New York; the daughter of Rabbi Yehudah Leib, and his wife Chava. She grew up in Borough Park, learning first in Bais Yaakov, then in Bais Rivka, following which she earned a teaching degree, a profession for which she was greatly encouraged by the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Today, Zlata lives in Tsfat, Israel, whe...
Rabbi Dr. Zev Eleff is Chief Academic Officer of Hebrew Theological College in Skokie, Illinois. He is the author of six books and more than forty scholarly articles in the field of American Jewish history. Dr. Eleff ’s most recent books, Who Rules the Synagogue? (Oxford, 2016) and Modern Orthodox Judaism (JPS, 2016), were both finalists for th...
RABBI DAVID ELIEZRIE is a veteran Chabad shliach in Yorba Linda, California, and was previously the Jewish chaplain at the University of Miami. He is the president of the Rabbinical Council of Orange County and Long Beach, sits on the board of the Jewish Federation and Family Services of Orange County, and is active in local and national Jewish...
Chaim Natan Firszt was born in Israel and at a young age moved with his family to Montreal, Canada. In Montreal, he received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English from Concordia University, followed by a Teaching Diploma in English and a Master of Education Degree from McGill University. During his years of teaching in Montreal, the author learn...
Rabbi Yitzhak Frank studied at Yeshiva University and at the Telshe Yeshiva in Ohio. He received Rabbinical ordination from Yeshivath Rabbenu Yitzhak Elhanan where he was also a member of the kollel headed by Rav Aharon Lichtenstein (zt"l). He also received a B.A. in English and an M.S. in Religious Education at Yeshiva University. Rabbi Frank h...
Uriel Frank studied in Rabbi Shabbtai Sabato’s yeshiva in Mitzpe Yericho and Yeshivat Shevut Yisrael in Gush Etzion, headed by Rabbi Shabbtai Rappaport and Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Meir. He attained his academic degrees in Bible studies, Oral Law, education, and Hebrew language from Herzog College (BA) and the Lander Institute (MA). Frank’s interest i...
Esty Frankel-Fersel was born in Crown Heights, Brooklyn NY. She attended Bais Yacov through high school with a year of seminary in Israel. As a young adolescent, Esty joined a local art school where, for the next 15 years, she took instructional classes, learning the skills of copying and reproducing works of art with oil on canvas. She attended...
Robert Friend (1913 – 1998) was an American-born poet and translator. He settled in Israel in 1950, where he lived the rest of his life. He taught English and American Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for over thirty years. He was well known in Israel as an English-language poet and a translator of Hebrew poetry.Friend's first pu...
Uri Nissan Gnessin (1879–1913) was a Russian Jewish writer, generally considered a pioneer in modern Hebrew literature. Born in Starodub, where his father was a rabbi. He left home at an early age, and moved from one yeshiva to the other, he had struck up a lifelong friendship with fellow Hebrew modernist author, Yosef Haim Brenner, who had atte...
Leah Goldberg (1911-1970) was a prolific Hebrew-language poet, author, playwright, literary translator, and comparative literary researcher. Goldberg worked as a high-school teacher and earned a living writing rhymed advertisements until she was hired as an editor by the Hebrew newspapers Davar and Al HaMishmar. She also worked as a children’s ...
Hadar Goldin, a Lieutenant in the Givati Brigade of the IDF, was a Jewish patriot, humanitarian and artist, and only 23 years old when he was killed on August 1, 2014 by Hamas terrorists.Hadar was a remarkably gifted young man, a happy and lively person with an easy and winning smile. He was an accomplished painter and graphic artist who address...
Rabbi Dr. Jay Goldmintz is a veteran day school educator who has published widely on curriculum, tefillah education, adolescent religious development and religious parenting. He served for over 30 years as a teacher and administrator at the Ramaz School and currently teaches in Ma`ayanot Yeshiva High School.
Chief Rabbi Dr Warren Goldstein is the Chief Rabbi of The Union of Orthodox Synagogues of South Africa since 2005. The Chief Rabbi studied at the Yeshivah Gedolah of Johannesburg for more than fifteen years, where he received his rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Azriel Chaim Goldfein; he additionally qualified as a dayan through theEretz Hemda Ins...
Rabbi Shlomo Goren was an Orthodox Religious Zionist rabbi in Israel, a Talmudic scholar and foremost authority on Jewish law. He founded and served as the first head of the Military Rabbinate of the Israel Defense Forces and subsequently as the third Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1973 to 1983, after which he established a yeshiva in Jeru...
JORDAN B. GORFINKEL – Gorf – is a cartoonist, musician, writer, producer and proud husband and father of four children. For nearly a decade Gorf was a manager of the Batman franchise at DC Comics, where his creations serve as inspiration for television, film, games and more. Gorf’s creative studio, Avalanche Comics Entertainment, produces custom...
Dr. Menachem Gottesman founded the Mercaz L’Mida Dati (Meled) Learning Center High School in Jerusalem after an extensive career in academia, research in the social sciences, as well as in education, and clinical consultation, both in the U.S. and Israel. After receiving a B.A. in Psychology from Yeshiva University in New York, he completed both...
Leah Gottesman has a B.A. in English Literature and Education from City College of the State University of New York and an M.A. in Creative Writing from the English Department at Bar Ilan University. She divides her professional skills between teaching English, marketing, journalism, fundraising and tourism, and enjoys writing poetry and studyin...
RABBI IRVING (YITZ) GREENBERG is a musmaḥof Yeshivat Beit Yosef Novardok (Brooklyn) and holds a doctorate from Harvard University. He is a leading Jewish thinker, and has written extensively on Jewish tradition in post-modernity, Jewish theology after the Holocaust and the rebirth of Israel, the new encounter between Judaism and Christianity, th...
Rabbi Dr. Zvi Grumet is a master Bible teacher who lectures widely across the English-speaking world. Having earned his rabbinic ordination and Ed.D. at Yeshiva University, Rabbi Grumet dedicated the first eighteen years of his career to teaching Torah and leading educational institutions in the US. Today, he teaches at Yeshivat Eretz Hatzvi, th...
Jeffrey S. Gurock is the Libby M. Klaperman professor of American Jewish history at Yeshiva University. He is the author or editor of twenty books. His most recent work is The Jews of Harlem: The Rise, Decline and Revival of a Jewish Community (2016).
Grew up in Borough Park, Brooklyn, where both his grandfathers were Chassidic rebbes. He continued his Talmudic studies in rabbinical school and received his Ph.D. in philosophy from New York University. Halberstam has taught at NYU and Teachers College, Columbia University, and is currently a professor at BCC/City University of New York, where ...
David Weiss-Halivni was a specialist in Talmud and rabbinics. He spent thirty years as a member of the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary prior to his appointment at Columbia University. Although he has spent a large portion of his career focusing his attention on Talmudic source criticism, he later turned his attention toward biblical e...
Hillel Halkin is an American-born Israeli translator, biographer, literary critic, and novelist, who has lived in Israel since 1970.Halkin translates Hebrew and Yiddish literature into English. He has translated Sholem Aleichem's Tevye the Dairyman, and major Hebrew and Israeli novelists, among them Yosef Haim Brenner, S. Y. Agnon, Shulamith Har...
Dr. Stu Halpern is Senior Advisor to the Provost of Yeshiva University, and is responsible for developing and executing interdisciplinary thought-projects and educational and communal initiatives. During his 18 years at Yeshiva University, Dr. Halpern has served in various capacities, including Chief of Staff to the President, Assistant Director...
Rabbi Shalom Hammer lives in Israel with his wife Gabi and their seven children. He serves as a lecturer in the Jewish Identity Branch of the IDF, the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, and communities throughout the Diaspora. He is also a contributing writer for The Jerusalem Post. His previous books include Derash Yehonatan: Around the Year with ...
מאיר הנגבי הוא עורך ומלמד חסידות. עובד שנים רבות עם הרב עדין אבן־ישראל בהוצאת התלמוד המבואר, עורך סדרת הספרים 'ביאור תניא' ו'שלשה עשר עלי השושנה'.
Rabbi Dr Michael Harris was born in London in 1964. He studied at three yeshivot in Israel: Ma’ale Adumim, Machon Harry Fischel and Yeshivat HaMivtar in Efrat. He holds semicha (rabbinic ordination) from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and from other prominent Israeli rabbis. Rabbi Harris obtained his first degree in philosophy from Cambridge Univ...
Rabbi Michael Hattin is a master teacher of Tanakh at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem and serves as the Director of the Beit Midrash for the Pardes Center for Jewish Educators. He studied for rabbinic ordination at Yeshivat Har Etzion and holds a professional degree in architecture from the University of Toronto. Michael is t...
Rabbi Nathaniel Helfgot is head of the department of Torah SheBeal Peh at SAR High School in New York and rabbi of Kehillat Netivot Shalom in Teaneck, New Jersey.
RABBI MARVIN HIER is Founder and Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, one of the world’s foremost human rights organizations, with offices in the USA, Canada, Israel, France and Argentina. He heads the Center’s Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, which has been visited by nearly six million people, and the Center’s film division, Moriah Films. U...
Ahron Horovitz is the director of the City of David Institute for Jerusalem Studies and head of Israel's Ministry of Tourism School for Tour Guides - Derech Eretz. He resides in the City of David with his wife Esther and their six children.
Rabbi Alex Israel is an educator whose teaching over the past two decades has inspired thousands of students in the US, Israel and the UK to engage deeply with Biblical texts. He teaches at Yeshivat Eretz Hatzvi and at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies where he is Director of Community Education and the Summer Program. An active writer, he ...
Miron C. Izakson was born in 1956 to a family that was among the first orange growers in pre-state Israel. He studied law and Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at Tel Aviv University, and was chairman for literature on the Israel Culture and Arts Council. At present, Izakson lectures on literature at Bar-Ilan University...
Rabbi Chaim Jachter has earned an international reputation as a Get (Jewish Divorce) Administrator, consultant for community Eruvin and a prolific writer. His publications include a series of four well-received books entitled Gray Matter on contemporary topics in Jewish Law. He is a veteran teacher of Judaic Studies at Torah Academy of Bergen ...
Elliot Jager was raised on New York City’s Lower East Side, attended Mesiftha Tiffereth Jerusalem, Brooklyn College, and New York University. He worked as a manager in New York City government before moving to Israel. Jager’s journalism experience includes eleven years as a senior editor at The Jerusalem Post. He was the founding managing editor...
Born in Boston and raised in Hawaii, RABBI JEREMY KAGAN attended Yale University, graduating with a BA in philosophy. He first began studying Torah at Ohr Somayach while traveling in Israel during his college years. Following the completion of his degree at Yale, Rabbi Kagan returned to Israel to pursue talmudic studies, eventually becoming a st...
Enya Tamar Keshet was born in Pardes Hanna, Israel, and studied at the Hebrew University and the Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem. She works in paper cutting, calligraphy and color illumination enhanced by gold leaf, all hand-crafted on parchment. She has exhibited extensively in Israel and the US, where her Megillot, ketubot, and other art p...
Yaakov Kirschen, Political Analyst, Yale Fellow, Blogger, and Dry Bones Cartoonist. Kirschen was born in Brooklyn NY in 1938. He studied art at Queens College and became a cartoonist after he graduated in 1961. In 1971 he moved to Israel, changed his first name from Jerry to Yaakov, and in 1973 began drawing a daily editorial strip called Dry B...
Rabbi Dr. Barry Kislowicz served the Jewish community in Cleveland, OH for twelve years, most recently as Head of Fuchs Mizrachi School. He holds rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva University and a doctorate in education from Columbia University Teachers College. Rabbi Kislowicz is a recipient of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship and Covenant Foundat...
Judy Klitsner is a senior lecturer at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, where she has been teaching Bible and biblical exegesis for more than two decades. A disciple of the great Torah teacher Nechama Leibowitz, Judy has had a profound impact on a generation of students, of whom many now serve as teachers and heads of Jewish studies progr...
Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook (1865–1935) was the first Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Eretz Yisrael. His unique approach to the Jewish People, flowing from a heart full of love, an intellect of cosmic scope, but above all, a soul invaded by mystic God-consciousness, endeared him to both the scholars and pietists of the Old Yishuv, and the settler...
Rabbi Norman Lamm, former Chancellor and President of Yeshiva University from (August 1976 to August 2003)and former Rosh haYeshiva of its affiliated Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (2013), is one of the most gifted and profound Jewish thinkers today. He was the founding editor of Tradition, the journal of Orthodox thought published by...
Rabbi Dr. Binyami n Lau is an Israeli community leader, educator, and rabbi. He is the rabbi of the Ramban Synagogue in Jerusalem and head of the 929 Bible Project. Rabbi Lau also serves as a consultant for a number of leading organizations, is widely published, and is frequently cited in the media. He studied at Yeshivat Har Etzion and Yeshivat...
Naphtali Lau-Lavie was born in 1926 in Cracow, Poland. During the Holocaust he was imprisoned in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps, and was liberated on 11 April 1945. In July he immigrated to Palestine, and then joined the Hagana and fought in the War of Independence in 1948. He pursued academic and talmudic studies at the Heb...
Rabbi Nathan Laufer is former Director of Israel Programs for the Tikvah Fund, Founding Director of the Advanced Institute for Judaic Studies at the San Diego Jewish Academy and Founding Director of the Partnership for Effective Learning and Innovative Education (PELIE). Prior to holding these positions, he served as President and CEO of the Wex...
Michaela Lawson has over 15 years experience working with conversion candidates, sincere and fraudulent. Ashirah Yosefah created a non-profit organization to teach the Seven Laws of Noah to righteous gentiles and has mentored conversion candidates over a decade. Their personal stories, and others shared in Spark Ignited, portray the difficult jo...
Shnayer Z. Leiman is Professor Emeritus of Jewish History and Literature in the Department of Judaic Studies at Brooklyn College (CUNY) and also teaches at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Yeshiva University.
RABBI DR. AARON LEVINE, of blessed memory, was the Samson and Halina Bitensky Professor of Economics at Yeshiva University, as well as a pulpit rabbi for nearly thirty years. A leading authority on Jewish commercial law, he published widely on the interface between economics and Jewish law, especially as it relates to public policy and modern bu...
Dr. Bryna Jocheved Levy is one of the most esteemed Bible teachers in Israel and throughout the world. She is also a leader in the movement for women's Torah studies, and was the first woman awarded a doctoral degree in Biblical Studies by Yeshiva University. Dr. Levy teaches Bible at Matan: the Women's Institute for Torah Studies in Jerusalem, ...
Rabbi Dr. Aharon Lichtenstein (1933–2015) was born in Paris, France, and escaped the Nazi occupation with his family, arriving in the United States in 1941. After studying at Yeshivat Rabbi Chaim Berlin under Rabbi Yitzchok Hutner, he earned his rabbinic ordination at Yeshiva University and his PhD in English Literature at Harvard University. Wh...
Rabbi Mosheh Lichtenstein is rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion.
Joe Lieberman was a US senator from Connecticut for twenty-four years. At the end of his service in January 2013, he was Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and a senior member of the Armed Services Committee. In 2000, he was the Democratic candidate for Vice President of the United States. Senator Lieberman p...
Asael Lubotzky was born in Jerusalem in 1983 and grew up in the town of Efrat. He studied at the Hesder Yeshiva in Ma’ale Adumim, before enlisting in the IDF, where he served as platoon commander in the Fifty-First Battalion of the Golani Brigade. Lubotzky led his troops fighting in Gaza and Lebanon, until his severe injury in the Second Lebanon...
Sherri Mandell was born in New York and graduated from Cornell University and Colorado State University, where she received an M.A. in Creative Writing. She taught writing at the University of Maryland and at Penn State before moving to Israel with her family in 1996. She is the author of Writers of the Holocaust and has written for numerous mag...
Rabbi Abraham Mapu (1808 – 1867) was a Lithuanian Jewish novelist in Hebrew of the Haskalah ("enlightenment") movement. As a child, Mapu studied in a cheder where his father served as a teacher.For many years he was an impoverished, itinerant schoolmaster. He gained financial security when he was appointed teacher in a government school for Jewi...
Ruth Mark has an MA in Art and Education. She is the founder of Etnachta, a multi-disciplinary center for Bible-related activities as Aseh Chayil in Efrat, and a teacher at Afikim: The Center for Gifted Students in Gush Etzion.
Rabbi Yaakov Medan is rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion and teaches Tanakh in many institutions.
Rivka Miriam was born in 1952 in Jerusalem and is the daughter of the Yiddish writer Leib Rochman. She is named after her grandmother and aunt who were killed in the Holocaust. Rivka Miriam served as a member of the staff, and later as head, of the Elul Open College for interdisciplinary education activities between religious and non-religious J...
Rabbanit Yemima Mizrachi is a renowned author, teacher, and inspirational speaker. Since 2001, she has given weekly lectures in Jerusalem that are now attended by thousands of women of all ages and affiliations, and her classes are disseminated virtually throughout the world. An attorney and rabbinical court advocate by training, Rabbanit Yemima...
Rabbi Yakov Nagen holds a PhD in Jewish philosophy from the Hebrew University and is a senior educator at the Otniel Yeshiva, where he teaches Talmud and Kabbala. He is a leading figure in interfaith dialogue between Judaism and Islam and in encounters between Judaism and Eastern religions. Many of his writings have been translated into Chinese,...
Uri Orbach (1960 - 2015) was an Israeli journalist, media personality and member of Knesset. He attended a Hesder yeshiva, and did his national service in the IDF Armored Corps, where he served as a co-host for the Army Radio mid-morning show 'The Last Word'. He later worked as a journalist, and is widely known as a for producing columns for Isr...
Izzy Pludwinski has been working as a professional calligrapher since 1980. He has exhibited throughout Israel and has given two one-man shows in London. Internationally recognized, he was invited to Wales to work on the Hebrew text for the St. John's Bible, and has taught Hebrew Calligraphy in Jerusalem for over 15 years. He lives in Jerusalem ...
Rabbi Michael Pollak grew up in London and studied at City of London School. He spent 3 years at the legendary Chevron Yeshiva in Jerusalem and subsequently he graduated in Philosophy at the London School of Economics. He works as a consultant in education for the UJIA, LSJS and PAJES whilst teaching daf hayomi at the Ner Yisrael Community.
YESHIVAT HAR ETZION, a hesder yeshiva located in Gush Etzion, Israel, is one of the leading institutions of advanced Torah study in the world. Founded by Rabbi Yehuda Amital and Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, the yeshiva is dedicated to cultivating a commitment to Talmud Torah, a love of the Jewish people and the land of Israel, and an ability to en...
SIVAN RAHAV-MEIR is one of the most popular media personalities in Israel today. She is a primetime anchor on Channel 2 News; has a column in Israel’s largest newspaper, Yediot Aharonot; and has a weekly radio show on Galei Tzahal (Army Radio). Originally from a secular Israeli family, Rahav-Meir became religiously observant during her teens. Sh...
Avi Rat h is an Israeli author, educator, and media figure. He presented the weekly parashat shavua program on Israel’s Channel 1, edited the Israeli Talmud series, and has taught Judaism, history, and education in several institutions. Rath is director of community strategies at Medison Pharma, and a regular contributor to a number of local pub...
SIMCHA RAZ is a well-known Israeli author and educator. He holds rabbinic ordination from Merkaz HaRav Kook Yeshiva in Jerusalem. A third-generation Jerusalemite, he is the author of several popular books on aggadic and hasidic themes, several of which have appeared in English translation, including A Tzaddik in Our Time: The Life of Rabbi Aryeh...
Matt Rees is an award-winning novelist. He is the author of four mysteries about Palestinian sleuth Omar Yussef and of historical crime novels about Mozart and Caravaggio, which are published in 25 languages. His first novel won the Crime Writers Association New Blood Dagger. As a foreign correspondent he reported from across the Middle East for...
Elyashiv Reichner, a resident of the Negev city of Yeruĥam and a graduate of its yeshivat hesder, is a journalist at the newspaper Makor Rishon. His most recent book is The Orange Campaign: The Fight for Gush Katif [Hebrew].
Daniel Retter studied Talmud under the Mattesdorfer Rav z’l, and his son in law Rav Binyomin Paler z’l and teaches a daily Daf Yomi class at the Young Israel of Riverdale, NY since 1989. Mr. Retter practices international business, real estate, and immigration law, as counsel to Herrick Feinstein, LLP, in New York City.
Rabbi Yosef-Tzvi Rimon studied at the Netiv Meir Yeshiva High School in Jerusalem and joined Yeshivat Har Etzion in 1987. He served in the Armored Corps in the context of his army service in the Hesder Program and earned a Bachelor of Education degree from the Herzog College. He has served as a Ram in the Yeshiva since 1996 and also teaches clas...
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is a widely respected spokesperson and activist for Modern Orthodoxy in Israel. He serves as Chief Rabbi of Efrat and Founder, Chancellor Emeritus and Rosh HaYeshiva of the Ohr Torah Stone network of high schools, colleges, seminaries and rabbinical schools. Before moving to Israel in 1983, he was Associate Professor at Yesh...
Daniel Rogov (pen name of David Joroff ) (1935 - 2011) was born in Brooklyn New York and grew up in Borough Park. After graduating from high school in the early 1960s, he moved to Paris. He began his career writing food and wine articles for American magazines and newspapers. In December 1976, he moved to Israel and wrote book and restaurant re...
Rabbi Dr. Daniel Rose is a British-born educator with a background in informal and formal Jewish education in the UK, the US, and Israel. As Director of Educational Projects for Koren Publishers, Daniel was series editor and core contributor to the Koren Magerman Educational Siddurim series The series consists of four educational siddurim design...
Rabbi Shimon Gershon Rosenberg (Shagar) (1949–2007) was a leading religious Zionist scholar and teacher, and founder and Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Siah-Yitzhak, a hesder yeshiva and kollel located in Efrat, Israel. He grew up in Jerusalem, studied at the Kerem B’Yavneh Hesder Yeshiva and Yeshivat HaKotel. Later in life, Rabbi Shagar delved deeply...
Rabbi Shalom Rosneris a renowned Torah scholar and community rabbi based in Israel. He earned a BA in Economics from Yeshiva University, an MA in Jewish Education and Administration from the Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education, and has rabbinical ordination from RIETS. Prior to making aliyah, Rav Rosner was a popular Maggid Shiur in Yesh...
Professor Mordechai Rotenberg is a professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, chair of the Rotenberg Institute for Jewish Psychology, and the author of thirteen books. In 2009, he won the Israel Prize for his pioneering work in the field of Jewish psychology. His works are read worldwide, inspiring educators and therapists to appl...
Rabbi Haim Sabato, born in Cairo in 1952, descends from a long line of rabbis from Aleppo, Syria. His family moved to Israel when he was five, and he was educated in leading yeshivas in Jerusalem. A tank gunner in the Israel Defense Forces, he took part in major battles of the Yom Kippur War – an experience that served as the basis for some of h...
David L. Sachs received his B.S. in mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland. He currently works as an energy engineer at Bright Power Inc. specializing in building energy efficiency. David also studied at Yeshivat Hamivtar where he discovered his love for Torah learning. He has applied his methodical engineering background to Torah ...
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was the preeminent scholar of our age. He authored dozens of books and was sought after for his sage wisdom by monarchs, presidents, and prime ministers.
Jacob J. Schacter is University Professor of Jewish History and Jewish Thought at Yeshiva University and Senior Scholar at its Center for the Jewish Future.
Gershon Shaked (1929–2006) was an Israeli scholar and critic of Hebrew literature. Born Gerhard Mandel in Vienna, Austria, he immigrated to Mandate Palestine alone in 1939, and was later followed by his parents. He attended Gymnasia Herzliya in Tel Aviv. He hebraicized his surname to "Shaked" (almond). He was married to Malka, and had two daught...
Shmueli and Merav Shapira are parents to nine daughters…and one son-in-law (so far). They have accompanied countless couples through change, crisis and growth. They serve as counselors for the Havruta BaCafe initiative.
Rebbetzin Chana Bracha Siegelbaum, a native of Denmark, is founder and director of Midreshet B'erot Bat Ayin: Holistic Torah for Women on the Land. She holds a Bachelor of Education in Bible and Jewish Philosophy from Michlala Jerusalem College for Women, and a Masters of Art in Jewish History from Touro College. Rebbetzin Chana Bracha creates c...
Rabbi David Silber is the founder of the “Derisha” program in New York, leading it from its foundation. He has taught Tanakh for many years to many and varied communities in the United States and Israel.Ben Zion Ovadia is the head of the Chavruta Beit Midrash in the Hebrew University, and teaches at Derisha.The Derisha Beit Midrash was one of th...
Rabbi David Silverstein is the Sgan (Assistant) Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshivat Orayta, located in the Old City of Jerusalem, and previously served as the Director of the Overseas Program at Yeshivat Hesder, Petach Tikva. Rabbi Silverstein lectures widely on the philosophy and meaning of Jewish law. Originally from New Jersey, Rabbi Silverstein lives w...
Rabbi Shmuel Simons was born in London and was educated at the Hasmonean Grammar School (as it was then known) before moving to Gateshead Yeshiva. He continued his learning at the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnai Brak and subsequently spent eleven years in the Gateshead Kollel where, in his final year, he was a member of the Kollel Executive. For eight...
Rabbi Dov Singer is a recognized trailblazer in Israeli education and Jewish spirituality. He has attracted thousands of Jews of all backgrounds to workshops and prayer events to explore and enhance spirituality while going beyond ritual choreography. He is head of Yeshivat Makor Chaim and the Study Center for Renewal, is an educational innovato...
Rabbi Dr. Natan Slifkin is the founder and director of the Biblical Museum of Natural History near Beit Shemesh, Israel. Raised in Manchester, England, he made aliya to Israel in 1993. He studied in yeshivot for many years and received rabbinic ordination from Or Sameach Institutions. He holds an MA in Jewish Studies from Lander College Jerusale...
Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik is director of the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University, and rabbi at Congregation Shearith Israel in Manhattan. He graduated summa cum laude from Yeshiva College, received his semikha from RIETS, and was a member of its Beren Kollel Elyon. In 2010, he received his doctor...
חיים סולובי'יק לימד בחוג להיסטוריה של עם ישראל באוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים, היום הוא מופקד על הקתדרה למחקר בהיסטוריה של עם ישראל וספרותה על שם משפחת מֶרקין בישיבה-אוניברסיטה בניו יורק. ריו הקודמים: "הלכה, כלכלה ודימוי עצמי: המשכונאות בימי הביניים, היין בימי הביניים — יין נסך: פרק בתולדות ההלכה באשכנז" ו"שו"ת כמקור היסטורי".
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903–1993) was born in Russia into a family of renowned Eastern European rabbis. Initially trained in the scholarship of the sacred texts of Judaism, he enrolled at twenty-three at the University of Berlin in order to study physics, mathematics, and philosophy. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on the philosopher H...
Rabbi David Stav is Chief Rabbi of the City of Shoham & Chairman of the TZOHAR organization. Rav Stav is a graduate of Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav and has qualification for Dayanut (Rabbinical Judge) from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. Rav Stav lectures in the women's Judaic program at Bar Ilan University, authors a weekly column in the Israel Hay...
Rabbi Aviad Tabory is an instructor in Talmud and Halakha at Yeshivat Eretz HaTzvi in Jerusalem. He has also taught at numerous seminaries in Israel, including Orot, Midreshet Lindenbaum, and Midreshet HaRova. Rabbi Tabory served as Rav Shaliach for Bnei Akiva in the United Kingdom and was the founding rabbi of Kehillat Alei Tzion in London. He ...
Rabbi Binyamin Tabory, a talmid of Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik and talmid-chaver of Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, received semikha from Yeshivat Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan and a Master’s degree in Jewish Philosophy from Yeshiva University. For more than thirty years, he gave an advanced Gemara shiur in Yeshivat Har Etzion. He previously served as rosh...
Dr. Meir Tamari is the Director of The Center for Business Ethics and Social Responsibility in Jerusalem.
Yerachmiel Michael Tilles is a native of the Bronx. In 1965, he graduated from Harpur College (now Binghamton University) at age 20. After becoming Chasidic and getting married, he moved with his family to Israel in 1978 to “the mystical city” of Safed, where he has worked as a teacher, translator, webmaster, seminar designer and director, edito...
S. B. Unsdorfer was born in Bratislava, Slovakia, the son of the town's much-loved rabbi. At the tender age of nineteen he was torn from his parents at Auschwitz where they were selected for extermination on the night of their arrival in 1944. Simcha survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald death camps to make a new life in england where he self-taught...
Miriam Feinberg Vamosh is the author of several informative, illustrated books about ancient times in the Holy Land that have been translated into more than 30 languages. Her love affair with the Bible and ancient sources began in her parents’ home and led to her writing career. This love has deepened over many years as a tour educator in Israel...
Rabbi Menachem Waldman is a central and veteran activist in the struggle for the aliyah and absorption of Ethiopian Jewry. For many years he served as the representative of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate on the matter of Ethiopian Jewry and headed the Shvut Am Institute. In recent years, he has directed the Jewish Agency’s Jewish education programs...
Rabbi Berel Wein is a widely recognized expert on Jewish history, which he has popularized through lectures, books, seminars, television and radio appearances, and films. A former lawyer and pulpit rabbi and Founder of Yeshiva Sha’arei Torah, Suffern, NY, Rabbi Wein has received numerous awards, including, most recently, the Torah Prize Award fr...
DR. SUSAN WEINGARTEN is an archaeologist and historian. She was born in England, studied at Oxford University, and moved to Israel in 1973. After raising five children, she went on to study Classical Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, where she received her PhD. She has worked for many years as part of the research team of the Sir Isaac Wolfson...
RABBI DR. TZVI HERSH WEINREB is Executive Vice President, Emeritus of the Orthodox Union. For over seven years as Executive Vice President, he built the Orthodox Union to an unparalleled degree of esteem, as he combined the skills of pulpit rabbi, scholar, and clinical psychologist to provide extraordinary leadership to the organization and Orth...
Avraham Haim Yosef (Avi) haCohen Weiss is an American Modern Orthodox ordained rabbi, author, teacher, lecturer, and activist who heads the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale in The Bronx, New York, from which he will be retiring in 2015. He is the founder of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, a rabbinical seminary he refers to as "Open Orthodox", a term he co...
Rabbi Zalman Weiss is an Orthodox rabbi living Jerusalem, Israel. He received smicha from Rabbi Zalman Nechemiah Goldberg, and studied at the yeshivas of Kol Yaakov in Munsey, NY, and Ohr Samaych and MiLi in Jerusalem, Israel. Rabbi Weiss has been actively involved in the education of potential converts for many years, working with the Beis Din ...
RABBI TULY WEISZ served as a Rabbi for five years at the Beth Jacob Congregation in Columbus, Ohio before moving to Israel with his family. He attended Yeshiva University (BA), Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (Rabbinic Ordination) and the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law (JD). He is the founder of Israel365, an organization which promote...
RABBI NETANEL WIEDERBLANK studied at the Yeshiva of Greater Washington, Kerem B’Yavne, Chevron Yeshiva (Givat Mordechai), Yeshiva University, and RIETS. Currently, he is a Maggid Shiur at Yeshiva University, where he teaches college and semicha students Talmud, Halacha, and Jewish Philosophy. Rabbi Wiederblank also serves as rabbi at the Yeshi...
Lawrence Wills received his doctorate from Harvard Divinity School, and has taught there and at Episcopal Divinity School. His book, The Jewish Novel in the Ancient World, was named an Outstanding Academic Book of 1995 by Choice magazine for academic librarians, and he has also published The Quest of the Historical Gospel: Mark, John and the Ori...
Prof. Ruth Wisse is a Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature at Harvard University and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Tikvah Fund. She lives in Manhattan, New York.
Tamar Yellin was born in England. Her first novel, The Genizah at the House of Shepher, appeared from The Toby Press in 2005 was awarded the first Rohr Prize. Tamar Yellin lives in Yorkshire.
Erez Zadok is a comic book artist, illustrator and caricaturist. Erez received his degree in Visual Communications from the worldrenowned Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem, Israel. Following graduation, Erez gained immediate notice for his Israeli comics publications, Tranquillo and Miko Bel: Master of Potions. Erez and Gorf collaborated with...
Dr. Dov S. Zakheim was Under Secretary of Defense (2001–2004) and Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (1985–87) of the United States. He holds a B.A. from Columbia University and a D.Phil. from St. Antony's College, University of Oxford, and received rabbinic ordination from the Gaon Rabbi Shmuel Walkin. A three-time recipient of the U.S. Departme...
Dr. Yael Ziegler is a lecturer in Bible at Herzog Academic College and at Matan Jerusalem, and author of Promises to Keep: The Oath in Biblical Narrative. A graduate of Stern College and Bar-Ilan University, she lectures widely in Israel, the United States, Europe, and South Africa. Dr. Ziegler resides in Alon Shevut, Israel, with her husband an...
Rabbi Reuven Ziegler is Chairman of the Editorial Board at Koren Publishers Jerusalem, Director of Research at the Toras HoRav Foundation, and Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Yeshivat Har Etzion’s Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash.
אביעד עברון לומד ומלמד בישיבת מעלה גלבוע. עורך את כתב העת 'דעות', ספרים ומאמרים. תלמיד לתואר מוסמך בתלמוד באוניברסיטת בר אילן
בן-ציון עובדיה מלמד בבית המדרש ׳חברותא׳ שבאוניברסיטה העברית וב׳דרישה׳. בית המדרש 'דרישה' הוא מחלוצי בתי המדרש לנשים בעולם, ופועל משנת 1979 בניו יורק. הוא מציע תכניות ומסלולי לימוד רבים, הפונים למגוון קהלים וקבוצות מכל רחבי ארה"ב, חלקם פתוחים אף לגברים. בשנים האחרונות מפעיל בית המדרש תכניות לימוד ייחודיות בארץ המיועדות לקהל הסטודנטים הישראלי.
דרור יהב הוא כותב, עורך ומרצה בנושאי יהדות. בוגר יחידה 8200 ואיש הייטק לשעבר, בוגר תואר שני בתוכנית ליהדות זמננו באוניברסיטת בר־אילן ומנהל הבלוג "פשוט יהדות". מתגורר ברמת גן עם אשתו וילדיו.
בן-ציון עובדיה מלמד בבית המדרש ׳חברותא׳ שבאוניברסיטה העברית וב׳דרישה׳. בית המדרש 'דרישה' הוא מחלוצי בתי המדרש לנשים בעולם, ופועל משנת 1979 בניו יורק. הוא מציע תכניות ומסלולי לימוד רבים, הפונים למגוון קהלים וקבוצות מכל רחבי ארה"ב, חלקם פתוחים אף לגברים. בשנים האחרונות מפעיל בית המדרש תכניות לימוד ייחודיות בארץ המיועדות לקהל הסטודנטים הישראלי.
ד"ר חזי כהן מורה לתנ"ך בישיבת מעלה גלבוע, במדרשת עין הנצי"ב ובאוניברסיטת בר אילן. בעל תואר דוקטור במקרא, ומקדישאת זמנו לעיון בשאלות שבין מסורת לביקורת. עוסק בתורתם של חכמי המזרח בכלל ושל הבן איש חי בפרט, ועורך האתר 'חכימא – סיפורים מחכמי המזרח'.
קלמן סמואלס, יליד ונקובר, קנדה, הוא מייסד ׳שלוה׳ ונשיא הארגון, דוקטור לשם כבוד באוניברסיטת בר אילן, אב לשבעה ואוהב אדם. זהו ספרו הראשון.
