Michael Schudrich | |
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| Title | Chief Rabbi of Poland, Rabbi of Łódź, Rabbi of Warsaw |
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| Born | June 15, 1955 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Religion | Judaism |
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Michael Joseph Schudrich (born June 15, 1955) is an American rabbi and the current Chief Rabbi of Poland. He is the oldest of four children of Rabbi David Schudrich and Doris Goldfarb Schudrich.
Born in New York City, Schudrich lived in Patchogue, New York, where his father served as a pulpit rabbi. [1] His grandparents emigrated to the United States from Baligród, Poland, before World War II. [2]
Educated in Jewish day schools in the New York City area, Schudrich graduated from Stony Brook University in 1977 with a Religious Studies major and received an MA in History from Columbia University in 1982. He received Conservative smicha (rabbinical ordination) from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and later, an Orthodox smicha through Yeshiva University from Rabbi Moshe Tendler. He served as rabbi of the Jewish Community of Japan from 1983 to 1989. [3]
After leading Jewish groups on numerous trips to Europe, Schudrich began working for the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation and resided in Warsaw, Poland, from 1992 to 1998.
He returned to Poland in June 2000 as Rabbi of Warsaw and Łódź, and in December 2004 was appointed Chief Rabbi of Poland. [4] Schudrich has played a central role in the "Jewish Renaissance" in Poland.
Schudrich is a member of the Rabbinical Council of America and the Conference of European Rabbis. In Kashrut he cooperates with the Orthodox Union, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and other Kashrut organizations. Schudrich has been a Polish citizen since November 3, 2005, and now holds both American and Polish citizenship.
On May 27, 2006, Schudrich was assaulted with what appeared to be pepper spray in central Warsaw by a 33-year-old man. [5] According to the police, the perpetrator had ties to "Nazi organizations" and a history of football-related hooliganism. [6] Schudrich hit back, and the attack on him brought condemnation from Polish media and politicians. [7]
Rabbi Schudrich had been invited to travel on the aircraft that crashed on 10 April 2010, killing 96 people including the Polish president. He refused as it would have violated the Jewish Sabbath, a decision which saved his life. [8]
In February 2018, Rabbi Schudrich entered into discussion with the Polish parliament with the hope of amending a proposed animal-rights law that would restrict kosher slaughter in Poland. [9] During the same month he implored with Jewish leaders to refrain from boycotting Poland over the "Holocaust law", which criminalizes any public statements that the Polish nation was complicit in Nazi war crimes. [10]
Kashrut is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher, from the Ashkenazi pronunciation of the term that in Sephardic or Modern Hebrew is pronounced kashér, meaning "fit". Food that may not be consumed, however, is deemed treif, also spelled treyf.
Vaad is a Hebrew term for a council. Often it refers to a council of rabbis, i.e., a rabbinical council. It is a diasporic phenomenon, having no precedent in Talmudic times. A Vaad has different responsibilities from a beth din.
A hechsher or hekhsher is a rabbinical product certification, qualifying items that conform to the requirements of Jewish religious law.
A mashgiach or mashgicha is a Jew who supervises the kashrut status of a kosher establishment. Mashgichim may supervise any type of food service establishment, including slaughterhouses, food manufacturers, hotels, caterers, nursing homes, restaurants, butchers, groceries, or cooperatives. Mashgichim usually work as on-site supervisors and inspectors, representing a kosher certification agency or a local rabbi, who actually makes the policy decisions for what is or is not acceptably kosher. Sometimes certifying rabbis act as their own mashgichim; such is the case in many small communities.
Kosher wine is wine that is produced in accordance with halakha, and more specifically kashrut, such that Jews will be permitted to pronounce blessings over and drink it. This is an important issue, since wine is used in several Jewish ceremonies, especially those of Kiddush.
In Judaism, shechita is ritual slaughtering of certain mammals and birds for food according to kashrut.
Kosher foods are foods that conform to the Jewish dietary regulations of kashrut. The laws of kashrut apply to food derived from living creatures and kosher foods are restricted to certain types of mammals, birds and fish meeting specific criteria; the flesh of any animals that do not meet these criteria is forbidden by the dietary laws. Furthermore, kosher mammals and birds must be slaughtered according to a process known as shechita and their blood may never be consumed and must be removed from the meat by a process of salting and soaking in water for the meat to be permissible for use. All plant-based products, including fruits, vegetables, grains, herbs and spices, are intrinsically kosher, although certain produce grown in the Land of Israel is subjected to other requirements, such as tithing, before it may be consumed.
World Agudath Israel, usually known as the Aguda, was established in the early twentieth century as the political arm of Ashkenazi Torah Judaism. It succeeded Agudas Shlumei Emunei Yisroel in 1912. Its base of support was located in Eastern Europe before the Second World War but, due to the revival of the Hasidic movement, it included Orthodox Jews throughout Europe. Prior to World War II and the Holocaust, Agudath Israel operated a number of Jewish educational institutions throughout Europe. After the war, it has continued to operate such institutions in the United States as Agudath Israel of America, and in Israel. Agudath Israel is guided by its Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah in Israel and the USA.
The Orthodox Union is one of the largest Orthodox Jewish organizations in the United States. Founded in 1898, the OU supports a network of synagogues, youth programs, Jewish and Religious Zionist advocacy programs, programs for the disabled, localized religious study programs, and international units with locations in Israel and formerly in Ukraine. The OU maintains a kosher certification service, whose circled-U hechsher symbol, U+24CAⓊ, is found on the labels of many kosher commercial and consumer food products.
After the fall of Communism in Poland in 1989, Jewish cultural, social, and religious life has experienced a revival. Many historical issues related to the Holocaust and the period of Soviet domination (1945–1989) in the country – suppressed by Communist censorship – have been reevaluated and publicly discussed leading to better understanding and visible improvement in Polish–Jewish relations. In 1990, there were 3,800 Jews in Poland, 0.01% of Poland’s population, compared to 3,250,000 before 1939. The number had dropped to 3,200 in 2010.
Chaim Yisroel HaLevi Belsky was an American rabbi and posek of Orthodox and Haredi Judaism. He was one of the roshei yeshiva (deans) at Yeshiva Torah Vodaas, and rabbi of the summer camp network run by Agudath Israel of America.
Magen Tzedek, originally known as Hekhsher Tzedek, is a complementary certification for kosher food produced in the United States in a way that meets Jewish Halakhic (legal) standards for workers, consumers, animals, and the environment, as understood by Conservative Judaism. Magen Tzedek certification is not a kashrut certification which certifies that food is kosher in that it meets certain requirements regarding ingredients of food and technical methods of animal slaughter, but an ethical certification complementary to conventional kosher certification.
The Central Rabbinical Congress is a rabbinical organization that is a consortium of various Haredi Jewish groups, with offices in Brooklyn, New York.
Pinchas Paul Biberfeld was a rabbi in Germany and Israel.
Rabbi Mordechai Zev Gutnick is a prominent Orthodox Jewish rabbi in Australia. Gutnick has served as a member of rabbinical courts in Melbourne and Sydney and various Australian rabbinical associations. He is associated with the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement; he is the eldest son of the late Rabbi Chaim Gutnick.
Moshe D. Gutnick is an Australian Orthodox rabbi, and a member of the ultra Orthodox Chabad Hasidic movement. Rabbi Gutnick is a senior member of the Beth Din in Sydney, Australia. Gutnick is currently President of the Rabbinical Council of Australia and New Zealand. Gutnick is the head of the NSW Kashrut Authority. He formerly served as the rabbi of the Bondi Mizrachi Synagogue in Sydney.
Yona Sztencl was an Orthodox rabbi who founded the Mishnah Yomis and the Halacha Yomis. He also served as the rabbi of Congregation Bais Hassidim Arlenger in Tel Aviv and was a member of the Chief Rabbinate of Tel Aviv.
Sholom Shuchat is an American rabbi, rosh kollel, and dayan.
Hashgacha Pratit (השגחה-פרטית) is an independent, Israel-based organization with both female and male clergy that self-describes as providing an alternative form of Orthodox Rabbinical authority and social activism group dedicated to challenging the monopoly of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel over religious ceremonies and practices, through the provision of private religious ceremonies. Founded in 2012 by Rabbi Aaron Leibowitz in Jerusalem, Israel, it offers alternative halachic services in life-cycle events, rabbinical training, and other courses in religious education. It has provided private kashrut supervision for restaurants, worked on raising public awareness and finding loopholes in the laws to circumvent the Chief Rabbinate's monopoly, first regarding Kashrut, by leading the movement to open the kosher food market to competition, and today regarding Orthodox wedding ceremonies.
Shlomo Zev Zweigenhaft was a rabbi who was Rosh Hashochtim of Poland before the Holocaust. After the Holocaust he was Chief Rabbi of Hanover and Lower Saxony. After emigrating to the United States he was a Rav Hamachshir and was described as the "foremost authority on shechita".
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