Jeremy Rosen (born (1942-09-11)11 September 1942)[1] is an Orthodox rabbi, author, and lecturer. Rosen is an advocate of modern Orthodox Judaism which aims to balance tolerance of modernity, individual variations and a commitment to Jewish law (Halacha).[citation needed] His articles and weekly column appear in publications in several countries, including the Jewish Telegraph and the London Jewish News, and often comments on religious issues on the BBC. He is director of Yakar Educational Foundation in London, and chairman of the Faculty for Comparative Religion (FVG) in Antwerp.
Rosen was born in Manchester, England, the eldest son of Rabbi Kopul Rosen and Bella Rosen. His brothers, Michael Rosen (1945-2008) and David Rosen (b. 1951) also entered the rabbinate.
Jeremy Rosen's thinking was strongly influenced by his father, who rejected fundamentalist and obscurantist approaches in favour of being open to the best the secular world has to offer while remaining committed to religious life.[2] Rosen was first educated at Carmel College, the school his father had founded based on this philosophical orientation. At his father's direction, he also studied at Be'er Yaakov Yeshiva[he] in Israel (1957–1958 and 1960). He then went on to Merkaz Harav Kook (1961), and Mir Yeshiva (1965–1968) in Jerusalem, where he received semicha from Rabbi Chaim Leib Shmuelevitz in addition to Rabbi Dovid Povarsky of Ponevezh and Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Shapiro of Yeshivat Be'er Ya'akov. In between he attended Cambridge University (1962–1965), graduating with a degree in Moral Sciences.[3]
In 1966, while still at Mir, Rosen spent three months as rabbi of the Bulawayo Hebrew Congregation in Zimbabwe (then called Southern Rhodesia). A member of the congregation at that time[who?] recalls:
"After Rabbi Yesorsky passed away there came to Bulawayo a rabbi unlike any we had ever known—Jeremy Rosen. ALL the girls fell in love with him. He was a really special person and left a lasting impression on the whole community. He made the religion become very much a living entity and not something that belonged to the rabbi and the synagogue goers."[4]
In 1971, Rosen was asked to become headmaster of Carmel College, upon the sudden resignation of the headmaster who had succeeded his father after his death in 1962. Carmel College, which was founded as a boys' boarding school, had become coeducational in 1969. Rabbi Rosen felt the school had become a rather secular imitation of English public schools, and worked to turn it back into a more proactively religious Jewish school. He believed in keeping the school small and selective, and sought to maintain the goals of high academic and cultural standards, while also upgrading the quality of the Jewish education.
Constant financial pressure, as well as difficulties in finding competent Jewish staff, eventually led Rabbi Rosen to resign in 1984.[citation needed] He took a sabbatical in Israel, where he lectured at the WUJS Institute in Arad and at Ben Gurion University of the Negev with Rabbi Pinchas Hacohen Peli. While at Ben Gurion he began work on his PhD on Wittgenstein and Religion, which he completed in 1994. [citation needed]
After this sabbatical, Rosen returned to the rabbinate, choosing a small but independent Orthodox synagogue in central London called The Western Synagogue. Most of its members had moved away from the area, but it had its own burial grounds and was financially secure.[citation needed] Rosen felt that the independence of the Western Synagogue provided him the opportunity to reach different communities and constituencies, and a platform from which to offer an alternative and more open Orthodox viewpoint than what he saw as the increasingly narrow and controlled atmosphere of the mainstream Orthodox rabbinate.[citation needed] He became Chief Rabbi Jackobovitz's cabinet member for Interfaith Affairs, which he regarded as his one concession to the mainstream United Synagogue.[citation needed]
When, in 1990, the Western Synagogue merged with Marble Arch Synagogue under the auspices of the United Synagogue, Rosen declined to come under the authority of the mainstream religious authorities.[citation needed] After helping as a temporary rabbi during the transition, he moved to Antwerp, Belgium, where he became chairman of the Faculty for Comparative Religion (F.V.G.). For the next seven years, he taught at Brussels under the aegis of C.E.J.I., while also working in his wife's family business. In 1997, Rosen moved to New York, where he worked as an educational and rabbinic consultant, teaching and advising schools and communities on developing new programs and improving their performance. [citation needed]
He returned to London in 1999 to head the British branch of the Yakar Educational Foundation, which had been founded by his younger brother, Michael (Mickey) Rosen, to further the teachings of their late father. (The name "Yakar", the Hebrew for "precious", is formed from the acronym of his name, Yaacov Kopul Rosen.) At that time, Jeremy became rabbi of the Yakar Kehilla, the synagogue associated with the foundation. [citation needed] The same year, Mickey founded the Yakar synagogue[5] in Jerusalem.
In 2003, Jeremy and Mickey Rosen sold the buildings and assets of the Yakar UK location, applying the funds toward the establishment of a Yakar location in Tel Aviv that would be run by former Yakar UK Rabbi Yehoshua Engelman, in addition to its primary location in Jerusalem.[citation needed] After that time, the Yakar Kehilla began holding services at the Independent Jewish Day School in Hendon. In 2006, Rosen resigned from Yakar Kehilla, to focus more time on new writing endeavours.[citation needed]
In 2007 Rosen retired to New York City, but in 2009 accepted the position of rabbi to the Persian Jewish Center of Manhattan.[6] He also teaches classes at the Jewish Community Center of Manhattan.[7] Rosen continues to write and lecture.
He was married to Vera Zippel, from Milan, Italy, in 1971. They had four children, Anushka, Jacky, Natalia, and Avichai. The marriage was dissolved in 1986, and in 1988 he married Susana Kaszirer from Antwerp, Belgium.[citation needed]
A rabbi is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as semikha – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of the rabbi developed in the Pharisaic and Talmudic eras, when learned teachers assembled to codify Judaism's written and oral laws. The title "rabbi" was first used in the first century CE. In more recent centuries, the duties of a rabbi became increasingly influenced by the duties of the Protestant Christian minister, hence the title "pulpit rabbis", and in 19th-century Germany and the United States rabbinic activities including sermons, pastoral counseling, and representing the community to the outside, all increased in importance.
Conversion to Judaism is the process by which non-Jews adopt the Jewish religion and become members of the Jewish ethnoreligious community. It thus resembles both conversion to other religions and naturalization. The procedure and requirements for conversion depend on the sponsoring denomination. Furthermore, a conversion done in accordance with one Jewish denomination is not a guarantee of recognition by another denomination. Normally, though not always, the conversions performed by more stringent denominations are recognized by less stringent ones, but not the other way around. A formal conversion is also sometimes undertaken by individuals whose Jewish ancestry is questioned or uncertain, even if they were raised Jewish, but may not actually be considered Jews according to traditional Jewish law.
Shlomo Riskin is an Orthodox rabbi, and the founding rabbi of Lincoln Square Synagogue on the Upper West Side of New York City, which he led for 20 years; founding chief rabbi of the Israeli settlement of Efrat in the Israeli-occupied West Bank; former dean of Manhattan Day School in New York City; and founder and Chancellor of the Ohr Torah Stone Institutions, a network of high schools, colleges, and graduate Programs in the United States and Israel.
Joseph Breuer, also known as Yosef Breuer was a rabbi and community leader in Germany and the United States. He was rabbi of one of the large Jewish synagogues founded by German-Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi oppression that had settled in Washington Heights, New York.
Neologs are one of the two large communal organizations among Hungarian Jewry. Socially, the liberal and modernist Neologs had been more inclined toward integration into Hungarian society since the Era of Emancipation in the 19th century. This was their main feature, and they were largely the representative body of urban, assimilated middle- and upper-class Jews. Religiously, the Neolog rabbinate was influenced primarily by Zecharias Frankel's Positive-Historical School, from which Conservative Judaism evolved as well, although the formal rabbinical leadership had little sway over the largely assimilationist communal establishment and congregants. Their rift with the traditionalist and conservative Orthodox Jews was institutionalized following the 1868–1869 Hungarian Jewish Congress, and they became a de facto separate denomination. The Neologs remained organizationally independent in those territories ceded under the terms of the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, and are still the largest group among Hungary's Jews.
Carmel College was founded in 1948 as a British, Jewish boarding school for boys, modelled on British public schools. In later years it was, to some extent, co-educational, and there were a few non-Jewish day pupils. It closed down in 1997.
Marc D. Angel is a Modern Orthodox rabbi and author, Rabbi emeritus of Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York City, a position he has held since 1969.
Religion in Israel is manifested primarily in Judaism, the ethnic religion of the Jewish people. The State of Israel declares itself as a "Jewish and democratic state" and is the only country in the world with a Jewish-majority population. Other faiths in the country include Islam, Christianity and the religion of the Druze people. Religion plays a central role in national and civil life, and almost all Israeli citizens are automatically registered as members of the state's 14 official religious communities, which exercise control over several matters of personal status, especially marriage. These recognized communities are Orthodox Judaism, Islam, the Druze faith, the Roman, Armenian Catholic, Maronite, Greek Catholic, Syriac Catholic, Chaldean, Greek Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic and Anglican churches, and the Baháʼí Faith.
The Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada (UOR), often called by its Hebrew name, Agudath Harabonim or Agudas Harrabonim ("union of rabbis"), was established in 1901 in the United States and is the oldest organization of Orthodox rabbis in the United States. It had been for many years the principal group for such rabbis, though in recent years it has lost much of its former membership and influence.
David Shlomo Rosen KSG CBE is the former Chief Rabbi of Ireland (1979–1985) and currently serves as the American Jewish Committee's International Director of Interreligious Affairs. From 2005 until 2009 he headed the International Jewish Committee for Inter-religious Consultations (IJCIC), the broad-based coalition of Jewish organizations and denominations that represents World Jewry in its relations with other world religions.
Rabbi Dr Yaacov Kopul Rosen (1913–1962) was an important anglo-Jewish rabbi and educationalist. In 1946 he testified before the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry on Palestine, asking them not to "play politics with the remnants of the Jewish people." A book titled Memories of Kopul Rosen was published in 1970.
The Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations is an umbrella organisation of Haredi Jewish communities in London, and has an estimated membership of over 6,000. It was founded in 1926, with the stated mission "to protect traditional Judaism", and has an affiliation of over a hundred synagogues and educational institutions. It caters for all aspects of Haredi Jewish life in London, and operates mainly in the suburbs of Stamford Hill, Golders Green, Hendon, and Edgware.
The history of the Jews in Antwerp, a major city in the modern country of Belgium, goes back at least eight hundred years. Jewish life was first recorded in the city in the High Middle Ages. While the Jewish population grew and waned over the centuries, by the beginning of World War II Antwerp had a thriving Jewish community comprising some 35,000, with many Jews connected to the city's diamond industry. The Nazi occupation of Antwerp from 1940 and The Holocaust decimated the city’s Jewish population. By the time of Antwerp's liberation in September 1944, the Jewish population had fallen to around 1,200.
Rabbi Dr. Bernard Illowy was a rabbi and leader of Orthodox Judaism in the United States.
The first openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender clergy in Judaism were ordained as rabbis and/or cantors in the second half of the 20th century.
Michael "Mickey" Rosen was a British-born Israeli rabbi and founder of Yakar, an innovative Jewish learning community and synagogue.
Chaya Gusfield is an American, Northern California attorney, known for being one of the two first openly lesbian rabbis ordained by the Jewish Renewal movement. Gusfield and Rabbi Lori Klein were ordained at the same time in January 2006.
Simon Glazer was an Orthodox rabbi who flourished at the turn of the twentieth century. He was known for founding and leading two major organizations of American Orthodox rabbis.
References
↑ ROSEN, Rabbi Jeremy, Who's Who 2014, A & C Black, 2014; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2014
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
