1. Avraham Haim Yosef haCohen Weiss is an American Open Orthodox ordained rabbi, author, teacher, lecturer, and activist who led the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale in The Bronx, New York until 2015.
24 Facts About Avi Weiss
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Avi Weiss is the founder of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah for men and Yeshivat Maharat for women, rabbinical seminaries that are tied to Open Orthodoxy, a breakaway movement that Weiss originated, which is to the left of Modern Orthodox Judaism and to the right of Conservative Judaism.
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Avi Weiss received his semikhah at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University in 1968.
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On June 29,2015, Avi Weiss resigned from the Rabbinical Council of America in protest over their decision to not accept graduates of his rabbinical seminary into the organization.
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Avi Weiss, who had finished his training at Yeshiva University a few years earlier and held pulpits in Creve Coeur, Missouri and Monsey, New York, became the synagogue's rabbi in 1973.
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Avi Weiss stepped down from the pulpit in July 2015, and Steven Exler became HIR's senior rabbi.
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In 1997, Avi Weiss started a new religious movement which he called Open Orthodoxy, which is to the left of Modern Orthodox Judaism and to the right of Conservative Judaism.
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In 1999 Avi Weiss founded Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, a rabbinic seminary in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx after resigning from Yeshiva University, where he had taught at Stern College for Women for decades.
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In June 2013, Avi Weiss handed over the presidency of YCT to Chicago rabbi Asher Lopatin.
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In May 2009, Avi Weiss announced the opening of Yeshivat Maharat, a new school to train women, bestowing upon them the title Maharat, which he himself created.
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Some have criticized his ordination of women rabbis as being incongruous with Orthodox Judaism, the stream of Judaism from which Avi Weiss received his own semikhah.
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Avi Weiss has encountered difficulties from the Israeli Rabbinate in regards to the acceptability of his conversions to Judaism.
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Avi Weiss has been vocal on many issues, including emigration and absorption of Soviet Jews, clemency for Jonathan Pollard, supporting Israel, preserving Holocaust memorials, and exposing antisemitism.
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Avi Weiss was an early leader of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, founded in 1964.
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In 2015, Avi Weiss published his memoir detailing his efforts to liberate Soviet Jews, Open Up the Iron Door: Memoirs of a Soviet Jewry Activist.
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Avi Weiss has served as personal rabbi to Jonathan Pollard, an American who spied for Israel sentenced to life in prison in 1987.
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In 1992 Avi Weiss was one of the signers of a full-page ad in The New York Times calling for the release of Pollard.
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In 1989 Avi Weiss conducted a "freedom Seder" in front of the prison where Pollard was incarcerated.
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At a speech at New York City Hall in 2001 Weiss criticized President George W Bush for not making a clearer distinction between Arab acts of terrorism and Israeli acts of self-defense.
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In 2006 Avi Weiss organized a protest in front of Syria's UN mission to denounce a Hezbollah offensive in the Middle East.
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Avi Weiss stated that he would not participate in same-sex weddings, because doing so would run contrary to his religious commitments, but that he had met countless gay individuals and couples, some of whom were members of his synagogue, who lived loving, exemplary lives.
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Avi Weiss has travelled worldwide as an activist in various causes.
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Avi Weiss protested President Ronald Reagan's visit to an SS cemetery in 1985.
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Avi Weiss was arrested in 1990 while protesting Kurt Waldheim's visit to the Salzburg Festival, and again in 1994, when he protested in Oslo, Norway, when PLO chief Yasser Arafat received the Nobel Peace Prize.