18 Facts About David Wolpe

David J Wolpe was born on September 19,1958 and is an American rabbi.

David Wolpe is Visiting Scholar at Harvard Divinity School and the Max Webb Emeritus Rabbi of Sinai Temple.

David Wolpe previously taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, Hunter College, and UCLA.

David Wolpe now serves as the Inaugural rabbinic fellow for the ADL, and a Senior Advisor for the Maimonides Fund.

David Wolpe resigned from an advisory group on antisemitism assembled by Harvard President Claudine Gay in December 2023 in response to what David Wolpe characterized as a hostile environment to Jews at Harvard.

David Wolpe has taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, and served as assistant to the Chancellor of that institution; at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles; and at Hunter College in New York, at UCLA and at Harvard.

David Wolpe wrote a regular weekly column for Time, and for the New York Jewish Week for almost 30 years.

David Wolpe has had public debates with Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Steven Pinker, Roger Cohen, Richard Dawkins, Matt Ridley, Bishop Barron, and Indian yogi and mystic Sadhguru, among others.

David Wolpe is the Max Webb Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple.

David Wolpe led the largest American Israel Public Affairs Committee delegation ever assembled from one synagogue to the AIPAC conference in Washington in 2008,2009,2010,2011, and 2012 with numbers ranging from 230 to 300 delegates.

David Wolpe traveled to Haiti to help his friend, writer Mitch Albom, rebuild an orphanage.

Critics asserted that David Wolpe was attacking Jewish oral history, the significance of Passover and even the First Commandment.

Orthodox Rabbi Ari Hier wrote that "Rabbi David Wolpe has chosen Aristotle over Maimonides, theories and scientific method over facts".

David Wolpe asserted that he was arguing that the historicity of the events should not matter, since he believes faith is not determined by the same criteria as empirical truth.

David Wolpe argues that no archeological digs have produced evidence of the Jews wandering the Sinai Desert for forty years, and that excavations in Israel consistently show settlement patterns at variance with the Biblical account of a sudden influx of Jews from Egypt.

In March 2010, David Wolpe expounded on his views saying that it was possible that a small group of people left Egypt, came to Canaan, and influenced the native Canaanites with their traditions.

David Wolpe added that the controversy of 2001 stemmed from the fact that Conservative Jewish congregations have been slow to accept and embrace biblical criticism.

David Wolpe serves on the Rabbinic Council of Jewish Vegetarians of North America.