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Joshua H. Ritchie (born 1938) is an American-Israeli haredi Rabbi, counselor and medical doctor. He is the founder and director of the Refuah Institute in Jerusalem, a non-profit orthodox-Jewish center which provides training in therapy techniques, life-coaching, marriage and youth counselling [1] based within the Jewish halacha.
Ritchie studied medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, becoming an MD in 1962. In the late 1960s and 1970s, he worked as a doctor and lecturer in Israel and California, specializing in pediatrics and family medicine. In the early 1990s he was an assistant professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and director of pediatric training at the University of Southern California School of Medicine.
In the 1980s he worked at the Edgemont Psychiatric Hospital in Los Angeles, founding the non-profit Refuah Institute in New York in 1994.
In 2001 the Refuah Institute moved its center of activity to Jerusalem, where Ritchie also helped establish an English-speaking crisis hotline, the Milev Center.
Ritchie received his rabbinical training from Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, becoming a disciple of the Amshinov Rabbi. He was ordained in 1990.
The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) is a Conservative Jewish education organization in New York City, New York. It is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism and a center for academic scholarship in Jewish studies. The Jewish Theological Seminary Library is one of the most significant collections of Judaica in the world.
The Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion is a Jewish seminary with three locations in the United States and one location in Jerusalem. It is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism. HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, Ohio, New York City, Los Angeles, California, and Jerusalem. The Jerusalem campus is the only seminary in Israel for training Reform Jewish clergy.
Hadassah, The Women's Zionist Organization of America is an American Jewish volunteer women's organization. Founded in 1912 by Henrietta Szold, it is one of the largest international Jewish organizations, with nearly 300,000 members in the United States. Hadassah fundraises for community programs and health initiatives in Israel, including the Hadassah Medical Organization, two leading research hospitals in Jerusalem. In the US, the organization advocates on behalf of women's rights, religious autonomy and US–Israel diplomacy. In Israel, Hadassah supports health education and research, women's initiatives, schools and programs for underprivileged youth.
Recha Freier born Recha Schweitzer, founded the Youth Aliyah organization in 1933. The organization saved the lives of 7,000 Jewish children by helping them to leave Nazi Germany for Mandatory Palestine before and during the Holocaust.
Abraham Joshua Heshel Twerski ; October 6, 1930 – January 31, 2021) was an Israeli-American Hasidic rabbi, a scion of the Chernobyl Hasidic dynasty, and a psychiatrist specializing in substance abuse.
Levi Yitzchak HaLevi Horowitz was a rabbi and the second rebbe of the Boston Hasidic Dynasty founded by his father, Pinchos Dovid Horowitz. He was the first American-born Hasidic rebbe and the founder of ROFEH International, a community-based medical referral and hospitality liaison support agency.
Haviva Ner-David is an Israeli feminist activist and rabbi.
Neve Yerushalayim is the oldest and largest college for Jewish women in the world. Founded in 1970 to educate baalot teshuva in the why and how of living an Orthodox Jewish life, Neve has approximately 35,000 alumni. Its campus in the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem is also home to 11 schools and seminaries for post-high school, undergraduate, and graduate students from religious backgrounds.
Jewish medical ethics is a modern scholarly and clinical approach to medical ethics that draws upon Jewish thought and teachings. Pioneered by Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits in the 1950s, Jewish medical ethics centers mainly around an applied ethics drawing upon traditional rabbinic law (halakhah). In addition, scholars have begun examining theoretical and methodological questions, while the field itself has been broadened to encompass bioethics and non-halakhic approaches.
Shalom Hartman Institute is a Jewish research and education institute based in Jerusalem, that offers pluralistic Jewish thought and education to scholars, rabbis, educators, and Jewish community leaders in Israel and North America. The institute's goal is to strengthen Jewish peoplehood, identity and pluralism, enhance the Jewish and democratic character of Israel, and ensure that Judaism is a compelling force for good in the 21st century.
The PUAH Institute is an Israel-based, international organization that works with Jewish couples with fertility problems. PUAH was founded in 1990 at the request of Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu to bridge the gap between fertility treatment and Jewish law.
The Refuah Institute is a non-profit haredi Orthodox Jewish training institute in Jerusalem, Israel. It was established in 2001, by an American Professor, Joshua H. Ritchie, MD and is partially funded by a sister organization in New York.
Binyamin Tzvi (Benny) Lau, is an Israeli rabbi, community leader, activist, author, and public speaker who lives in Jerusalem. He is the head of 929: Tanach B'yachad and headed the Kehillat Ramban synagogue in Jerusalem for 18 years. He is also the head of the "Human Rights and Judaism in Action Project" at the Israel Democracy Institute. Previously, he was the director of a number of programs at Beit Morasha in Jerusalem, including their Center for Judaism and Society, their Institute for Social Justice, and their Israel Institute for Conversion Policy. He is also a well-known writer, and makes frequent appearances in the media.
Laura Naomi Janner-Klausner is a British rabbi and an inclusion and development coach who served as the inaugural Senior Rabbi to Reform Judaism from 2011 until 2020. Janner-Klausner grew up in London before studying theology at the University of Cambridge and moving to Israel in 1985, living in Jerusalem for 15 years. She returned to Britain in 1999 and was ordained at Leo Baeck College, serving as rabbi at Alyth Synagogue until 2011. She has been serving as Rabbi at Bromley Reform Synagogue in south-east London since April 2022.
Dr. Yizhar Hess has served as the Vice Chairman of the World Zionist Organization. He was elected to that role in 2020 as a representative of MERCAZ, the Zionist slate of the global Masorti/Conservative Movement. A long-time activist and commentator on issues of religion and state in Israel, religious pluralism, and Israel-Diaspora relations, Hess previously served for thirteen years as CEO of the Masorti Movement in Israel.
David James Lazar is United States-born rabbi-educator, and Rabbi at Or Hamidbar in Palm Springs, California. He has served communities in Israel and Europe for more than 30 years.
Joel Landau is a Modern Orthodox rabbi. He is associated with Yad Ezra V’Shulamit, an organization providing help to people in need throughout Israel, and The Kemach Foundation whose mission is to make positive impact in Israeli society, by contributing to its economic development, and providing resources and support for the members of the ultra-Orthodox community. Currently he serves as the executive director of “Israel Up Close Productions”, a non-profit film production company that researches and reports on how Israeli innovations improve the everyday life of people across the world.
Avraham Steinberg is an Israeli medical ethicist, pediatric neurologist, rabbi and editor of Talmudic literature.
David J. Steiner was an American documentary filmmaker, educator, rabbi, real estate investor, mediator and political activist, best known for the documentary film Saving Barbara Sizemore (2016).