Yaakov Menken

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Rabbi Yaakov Menken (born 1965) is the managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values. [1] . An Orthodox Rabbi, he is also the founder and Director of Project Genesis, and creator of its website Torah.org. He is the co-founder and a featured writer on Cross-Currents, [2] an online blog, as well as the author of the Everything Torah Book. [3] . His writing has been featured in Newsweek, Fox News, The Federalist, and other general and Jewish media.

Contents

Menken graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Computer Science, and then attended Yeshivas Ohr Somayach, Beth Medrash Gavoha in Lakewood and Jerusalem, and the Mirrer Yeshiva Jerusalem. [4]

Career

Coalition for Jewish Values

Menken was among the founders of Coalition for Jewish Values in 2017, and is its Managing Director. [5] In a profile of Menken in the Jewish Press during the group's first year, he said the group's positions were generally "what people would call 'conservative,' but that's because 'conservative' is the name given to those who support traditional values... our religion puts us into a particular political camp." [6]

Project Genesis

Menken founded Project Genesis in 1993, hoping to involve Jewish university students in Jewish education.[ citation needed ] He began offering online classes, and invited other, less technologically knowledgeable rabbis to join him. When the internet rapidly grew, the subscriber base of Project Genesis grew from 50 to over 80,000 worldwide.[ citation needed ]

Cross-Currents

Menken teamed with Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, to create the Cross-Currents blog in late 2004. Adlerstein describes Cross-Currents as aiming "to expose the intersection between two currents: the timeless flow of authentic Torah thought, and the ebb and tide of current affairs." [7]

Other work

In 1998, 1999, and 2000, Menken published columns in Jewish World Review , discussing a variety of Judaic topics. [8] [9] [10]

He led the technical development of Contact Loved Ones, [11] an open voicemail system for those displaced by natural disasters. This story was picked up by the general media and especially by technical publications. [12]

Publications

In 2005, Adams Media published The Everything Torah Book: All You Need To Understand The Basics Of Jewish Law And The Five Books Of The Old Testament (Everything: Philosophy and Spirituality), part of the "Everything" series of guides. [3]

Notable Articles and Op-Eds

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References

  1. ↑ Sabes, Adam (2022-04-20). "Orthodox rabbis demand apology from Washington Post after identifying Libs of TikTok owner as Orthodox Jew". Fox News. Retrieved 2022-04-21.
  2. ↑ "Cross-Currents". Cross-Currents.com.
  3. 1 2 Yaakov Menken, The Everything Torah Book, Adams Media, 2005
  4. ↑ "About the Author" . Retrieved October 19, 2014.
  5. ↑ Guttman, Nathan. "Inspired By Trump Era, Orthodox Rabbis Launch New Political Group". The Forward. Retrieved 2022-04-24.
  6. ↑ Resnick, Elliot. "A Torah Voice In The Public Square: An Interview with Rabbi Yaakov Menken". The Jewish Press. Retrieved 2022-04-29.
  7. ↑ "About Us Cross-Currents". Cross-Currents. Retrieved 2015-12-01.
  8. ↑ "Are you 'tolerant'?". Jewish World Review.
  9. ↑ "Valuing life". Jewish World Review.
  10. ↑ "Living the Wired Life: Are We Sacrificing Our Children?". Jewish World Review.
  11. ↑ "Contact Loved Ones". Contact Loved Ones.
  12. ↑ "Hurricane relief organizer lauds MySQL, open source". Search Enterprise Linux.
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