Past Faculty

Rabbi Moshe Bryski is the director and spiritual leader of Chabad of the Conejo in Agoura Hills, CA. He also helped establish Chabad centers in neighboring Westlake Village, Calabasas, Oak Park, Camarillo, and Thousand Oaks, all of which are under the Chabad of the Conejo umbrella. Rabbi Bryski is a gifted teacher and the Founder of the Conejo Jewish Academy, an adult Jewish education institution that attracts approximately 3,000 students each year to its many offerings.

Rabbi Baruch Epstein is a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary to Illinois. Rabbi Epstein serves as the spiritual leader of Congregation Bais Menachem, a synagogue and community center located on Chicago's North Side. Rabbi Epstein is a highly sought-after teacher and lecturer - 75+ of his lectures are available online - and a popular contributor to Chabad.org's "Views on the News" and "Parsha" columns. He writes regularly on the weekly Torah portion and Jewish calendar, expertly incorporating mystical insights into his subjects with practical instruction for day-to-day life. He and his wife Chaya are the proud parents of three daughters.

Chaya Epstein has served for nearly twenty years with her husband Rabbi Baruch Epstein as a Chabad emissary to Chicago where she is the beloved Rebbetzin of Congregation Bais Menachem Nusach Ari. Chaya founded and directs "Women to Women", the women's educational division of Chabad-Lubavitch of the state of Illinois. Chaya is also a teacher and the Assistant Principal of Lubavitch Girls High School of Chicago, and has complete several lecture tours spanning the entire United States.

Rabbi Manis Friedman is a world-renowned author, lecturer, and social commentator with a provocative and incisive wit. He has been featured in over 200 print articles and interviewed on over 50 television and radio talk shows. He hosted his own critically acclaimed cable television series, Torah Forum with Manis Friedman, syndicated throughout North America. Friedman’s 1990 book, Doesn’t Anyone Blush Anymore, is currently in its fifth printing. In 1971, Friedman founded Bais Chana Institute of Jewish Studies in Minnesota, the world’s first yeshiva exclusively for women, where he continues to serve as dean. Rabbi Friedman served as simultaneous Yiddish-to-English translator for the televised talks of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Dennis Prager is one of America's most respected moralists and radio talk show hosts. He has been broadcasting on radio in Los Angeles since 1982. Widely sought after by television shows for his opinions, he's appeared on Larry King Live, Hardball, Hannity & Colmes, CBS Evening News, The Today Show and many others.Mr. Prager was a Fellow at Columbia University's School of International Affairs, and has taught Russian and Jewish history at Brooklyn College. He was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the U.S. Delegation to the Vienna Review Conference on the Helsinki Accords. He holds an honorary doctorate of laws from Pepperdine University. Since 1992, he has been teaching the Bible verse-by-verse at the University of Judaism.

Dr. Jon Greenberg received his bachelor’s degree with honors in biology from Brown University, and his master’s and Ph.D. in agronomy from Cornell University. He studied with Rabbi Chaim Brovender at Israel’s Yeshivat Hamivtar, and has conducted research for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Cornell University, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Cancer Research. Dr. Greenberg was Senior Editor of science textbooks at Prentice Hall Publishing Co., and served on the faculty of Yeshivas Ohr Yosef and the School of Education at Indiana University. Currently, Dr. Greenberg teaches at the Heschel School and the University of Phoenix, and is the webmaster of Torah Flora, an ethnobotany website dedicated to the study and preservation of Biblical plants. The study and practice of Biblical ethnobotany includes identifying plants and other natural phenomena mentioned in the Tanach (Jewish Bible), using information about these plants and phenomena to shed light on their use in prophetic metaphor, and studying the plants involved in performing various mitzvot in order to bring deeper meaning to the performance of those mitzvot.

Shaindy Jacobson is the director of JLI’s women’s studies division, The Rosh Chodesh society.

Mrs. Jacobson has been involved in the field of Jewish education for over twenty five years, teaching at the Bais Rivkah Teacher’s Seminary and serving as a community liaison and counselor for Operation Survival – a substance abuse prevention program.

Shaindy lectures around the world, educating women about their Jewish heritage and its practical application to their daily lives.

She is also an accomplished musician and composer and frequently accompanies her lectures with song and music.

Rabbi Simon Jacobson heads The Meaningful Life Center (www.meaningfullife.com), which bridges the secular and the spiritual through a wide variety of live and on-line programming.

Rabbi Jacobson is the author of the best-selling book Toward a Meaningful Life, a William Morrow publication that has sold over 300,000 copies to date and has been translated into 10 languages.

For over 14 years Rabbi Jacobson, as Editor-in-Chief of VHH, was responsible for publishing the talks of the late Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He also headed the research team for Sefer Halikutim - an encyclopedic collection of Chassidic thought.

Rabbi Jacobson has lectured to diverse audiences on six continents and in forty states on psycho-spiritual issues. He has been interviewed on over 300 radio and TV shows. He is also the publisher of the largest Yiddish-English weekly newspaper, The Algemeiner Journal (www.algemeiner.com).

Rabbi Mendel Kaplan is the founder and spiritual leader of Chabad @ Flamingo. Born in Norfolk Virginia, he was raised in various cities along the Atlantic Seaboard and spent his formative years immersed in Judaic studies at religious academies in close proximity to the internationally revered Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory. After graduating in 1990, he assumed a rabbinic internship in Los Angeles and subsequently held educational postings in Buenos Aires, Petersburg (Russia), Milwaukee, Detroit and Jerusalem.

Rabbi Kaplan serves as a Chaplain of the York Regional Police with the added distinction of being one of only two rabbis in the country to do so. The Rabbi is also an active member of Toronto’s Vaad HaRabbanim, York Region’s Advisory Committee of Community Links, and on The Police-Community Liaison Committee. He is a popular public speaker, featured regularly on many local television and radio shows, including a daily address on Toronto’s multi-cultural Radio CHIN FM.

Rabbi Moshe J. Kotlarsky is the Vice Chairman of the Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.
He was educated at the Yeshiva Tomchei Temimim, the main Lubavitch Yeshiva. He directs development of the global Chabad-Lubavitch emissary network initiating the sending of Shluchim (emissaries) to countless of countries. He directs the Kinus Hashluchim, the international conference of the Chabad Shluchim that takes place in New York each fall. He is the Chairman of the Jewish Learning Institute and Chabad on Campus.

Dr. Alexander Poltorak, a Russian-born theoretical physicist, has held a number of academic positions at US institutions, including Columbia University, Touro College, and Cornell University Medical College.

Dr. Poltorak is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of General Patent Corporation (GPC), an intellectual property (IP) management boutique and was named by IAM magazine among Word’s leading IP strategists to founding GPC, Dr. Poltorak served as the President and CEO of Rapitech Systems, Inc., a publicly-traded computer technology company.

Dr. Poltorak has co-authored two books, Essentials of Licensing Intellectual Property (John Wiley & Sons Publishers, Inc., 2004) and Essentials of Intellectual Property (John Wiley & Sons Publishers, Inc., 2002), and contributed a chapter to Making Innovation Pay - Turning IP into Shareholder Value (John Wiley & Sons Publishers, Inc., 2006). He has also published a number of scholarly articles on physics, brain research and numerous articles on patent law, licensing and economics. His book Light onto my Path – the Mezuzah Anthology is published as an eBook on Chabad.org. His articles on Torah and science have appeared in B’Ohr HaTorah.

Rabbi DovBer Pinson, the "Rashi of contemporary culture," is a world-renowned scholar, author, thinker, and beloved spiritual teacher. At a young age he was already considered one of the world's leading scholars of Kabbalah and Jewish philosophy, featured on the cover of the book, 3-Minute Discourses on Kabbalah by Leading Jewish Scholars. Through his books, lectures, and consul he has touched and inspired the lives of thousands.

Amongst his published works are: Reincarnation & Judaism: The Journey of the Soul. Inner Rhythms: The Kabbalah of Music Meditation & Judaism: Exploring the Jewish Meditative Paths. Toward the Infinite: The Way of Kabbalistic Meditation. Jewish Wisdom of the Afterlife :The Myths, Mysteries & Meanings. Thirty-Two Gates of Wisdom: Awakening through Kabbalah. Upsherin: A spiritual guide. 8 Lights: Eight Meditations for Chanukah.

Rabbi Pinson is an internationally acclaimed speaker and has lectured in both scholarly and lay settings throughout the globe. He currently serves as the Rosh Yeshiva of the IYYUN Yeshiva and heads the IYYUN Center in Brownstone Brooklyn.

Dr. Jonathan Sarna is the professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University and Director of its Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program. Dubbed by the Forward newspaper as one of America's fifty most influential American Jews, he is the chief historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia and recognized as a leading commentator on American Jewish history, religion and life. Dr. Sarna is a prolific author, including the award-winning seminal work, American Judaism: A History.

Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet, the "rebel rabbi", arrived in the UK in 1991. Having previously served as assistant principle of Oholei Torah Boys School in New York, he assumed the position as Rabbi of the Richmond Synagogue in Southwest London for two years, while also teaching Advanced Jewish Studies at the Jews Free School. In 1993, at the age of 28, he was offered the position as rabbi of the Mill Hill Synagogue. His vibrancy and dynamism has resulted in a continuous growth of membership, now in excess of 1400 members.

Rabbi Schochet has a Masters Degree in Jewish Studies from University College London. He authors numerous articles for newspapers, magazines and journals, and lectures extensively across the country and abroad. He served as Diary Rabbi to the Guardian Newspaper and also writes for the Jewish Chronicle, the Jerusalem Post, as well as a very popular weekly column in the Jewish News. He has been featured in The London Times and Time Magazine International. Rabbi Schochet often appears on CNN and on BBC as a regular panellist for The Big Questions. He serves on the Chief Rabbi's Cabinet with the portfolio of the family and is chairman of the Rabbinical Council of the United Synagogue. He was recently named by the Jewish Telegraph as one of the ten most influential Rabbis in the United Kingdom.

Mrs. Rivah Slonim. Education director at the Chabad Center for Jewish Student Life at Binghamton University, Rivkah is a self-described "Chassidic Feminist" who lectures internationally on the intersection of Jewish observance and contemporary life with a special focus on Jewish women. She is the editor of Total Immersion: A Mikvah Anthology and Bread and Fire: Jewish Women Find G-d in the Everyday,an anthology on Jewish women’s spiritually.

Leah (Valeria) Poltorak earned a MS in biophysics from Tbilisi State University, Georgia, FSU. She also completed her PhD coursework in molecular biology at the Moscow Institute of Virology. After immigrating into the US in 1982, she worked for Rockefeller University. She works now as the Executive Vice President of Ryogen, a genomic company in Suffern, New York. Leah and her husband Alex live in Monsey, New York. They have five children.

Dr. Gill Heart was born and raised in Israel where he served as an officer in an elite, Special Forces unit in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) training and commanding soldiers in his unit.

After receiving his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Imperial College, London University, he moved to the United States and became an entrepreneur. Over the past 10 years, Dr. Heart has successfully founded and led venture-backed, medical device startups. During this time, Dr. Heart followed a serious course of study of Torah and Jewish mysticism.

Dr. Heart leads seminars and workshops where he implements Kabbalistic knowledge of how to control one’s responses to triggers, e.g. stress, by utilizing Special Forces methods and training techniques. The sessions are designed to help participants improve their personal and corporate performance.

Mrs. Molly Resnick has produced numerous documentaries on the Middle East, Jews, and Judaism. A veteran newswoman, she has worked for Israeli TV, PBS, NBC News, and The Jewish Press and has interviewed VIPs such as Menachem Begin, Yizhak Rabin, Moshe Dayan and Henry Kissinger. An international speaker, fluent in five languages, Mrs. Resnick is the founder and director of the grassroots organization MATCKH (Mothers Against Teaching Children to Kill), an organization that has drawn attention to the dangers of teaching bigotry and violence to Arab children.

Dean of the Talmudic Seminary Oholei Torah from 1979 to 2005, Rabbi Efraim Piekarsky has helped develop the Talmud-study skills of tens of thousands of students during their formative years. In the 1970’s Rabbi Piekarsky helped build the vibrant Jewish community of Long Beach, CA with the founding of the Hebrew Academy Jewish day school and Congregation Lubavitch. He currently serves on the Rabbinic court of Vaad Rabbonei Lubavitch and publishes English translations of the primary Talmudic commentary, Tosfos on tosfosinenglish.com.

Yehoshua November’s debut poetry collection, God’s Optimism, won the 2010 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, was nominated for an LA Times Book Prize, and was named a finalist for the Tampa Review Prize for Poetry and Autumn House Poetry Prize. His work has been anthologized, selected as the winner of the Bernice Slote Award, and read by Garrison Keillor on NPR's The Writer's Almanac. His poems have appeared in numerous literary magazines, including Prairie Schooner, The Sun, Margie, Provincetown Arts, and New Works Review, and featured in countless Jewish publications, such as The Forward, The Jewish Week, Midstream, Zeek, European Judaism, and Kerem. He has been interviewed in literary journals, newspapers, and on radio programs. Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, November teaches writing at Rutgers University and Touro College and is interested in the intersection of Torah and the Arts.

Bronya Slavin Shaffer was born in France and raised in Montreal where she attended Bais Yakov High School, Hebrew Teacher's Seminary, and Sir George Williams University. Mrs. Shaffer is noted lecturer on Jewish women's issues, bringing to her listeners a refreshingly modern view grounded firmly in Torah values.

Although Chassidic, Mrs. Shaffer's broad scope of knowledge enables her to present a Torah perspective on modern life in a uniquely sensitive and sensible fashion. She has traveled extensively in the United States and Canada, as well as to Israel and the former Soviet Union, speaking on varied topics within the umbrella themes of marriage, intimacy, parenting, religious identity, and women’s issues.

Mrs. Shaffer serves as a mentor to people of all backgrounds and offers guidance to women, couples and adolescents. In addition to conducting regular classes, Mrs. Shaffer serves as a facilitator for several women’s self-awareness and support groups and leads workshops on child-rearing and relationships. She is a resident scholar on AskMoses.com and Chabad.org.

Rabbi Moshe New Founded the Montreal Torah Centre in 1991. One of Montreal’s crown jewels, MTC continues to attract growing numbers of Jews of all ages and backgrounds. Rabbi New is a frequent lecturer to audiences both local and abroad. Most recently, he gave the keynote address for the grand banquet at the International Conference of Chabad Shluchim.

David Gelernter has been a professor of computer science at Yale since 1982. He is also chief scientist at Mirror Worlds Technologies, contributing editor at the Weekly Standard and member of the National Council of the Arts. David is the author of several books, many technical articles, and several widely anthologized essays, pieces of art criticism, and works of fiction. "Mirror Worlds", published in 1991, "foresaw" the World Wide Web (Reuters, 3/20/01) and was "one of the inspirations for Java". Mr. Gelernter is also the author of "The Muse in the Machine," a 1994 publication about poetry and artificial intelligence, the novel "1939", "Machine Beauty," about aesthetics and technology, and other books; he's published in Commentary, ArtNews, Washington Post and many others. Recent talks include the Bradley Lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, keynotes at Agenda 2003, International Wireless World, PC Expo, and the 2002 Organick Lecture in Computer Science at the University of Utah. The "tuple spaces" introduced in Carriero and Gelernter's Linda system in 1983 are the basis of many computer-communication and distributed programming systems worldwide.

Rabbi Dr. Eddie Reichman is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center, and Associate Professor of Philosophy and History of Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM) of Yeshiva University, where he teaches Jewish medical ethics.

Rabbi Dr. Reichman received his rabbinic ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University and writes and lectures widely in the field of Jewish medical ethics. He is the recipient of a Kornfeld Foundation Fellowship and the Rubinstein Prize in Medical ethics, and is a member of both the board of the Halakhic Organ Donor Society and the advisory board of the Institute for Genetics and Public Policy. His research is devoted to the interface of medical history and Jewish law.

A native of South Africa, Mrs. Tzukernik, a corporate trainer, personal mentor, artist, and lecturer, creates innovative curricula designed to help people achieve maximum performance by disrupting their conventional ways of thinking. Her corporate training workshops offer business training solutions that allow for lasting change from the inside out.  Tzukernik is the founder and director of Omek, a center devoted to in-depth transformational learning for women. She is the creator of the Inner Vision Seminar and a course author for the JLI.

Raised in Pittsburgh, Rabbi Deren has served as the Director of Chabad Lubavitch in Stamford, Connecticut since 1974, where he maintains an ongoing teaching schedule of adult education classes in Talmud, Jewish Mysticism, and Chassidic Philosophy.

As New England Regional Director for Chabad Lubavitch, he is responsible for Chabad centers in seventeen communities in Connecticut and Western Massachusetts.  Rabbi Deren is a member of the Executive Board of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the international educational and outreach arm of the worldwide Chabad Lubavitch movement.

Mordecai Dzikansky, Retired Detective First Grade, spent his 25-year police career with the New York City Police Department. A Brooklyn native, Dzikansky's career began as a uniformed patrolman. Periods in the homicide and detective squads led to selection as a lead investigator of the then newly formed specialized Torah Task Force in 1993. From 2003 until 2007, Dzikansky was in Israel as the first NYPD Intelligence Division Overseas Liaison to the Israel National Police. His intelligence gathering and immediate relay of key information back to NYC enhanced the Department's ability to recognize, react to, and prevent or recover from terrorist acts.

Lévana Kirschenbaum, formerly the co-owner of Levana Restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, is a pioneer in Kosher upscale dining. She is a cooking teacher and cookbook author, and gives cooking demos across the country. She has published "Levana's Table: Kosher Cooking for Everyone," "Levana Cooks Dairy-Free!” and a book-DVD set based on her demo series called "In Short Order”.

David Nessenoff is an independet filmaker, singer/songwriter of contemperary Jewish music, and blogger. David gained national attention in June 2010 when he posted a video he had made of opinion columnist Helen Thomas making controversial statements about Israel to his website. Over the next several days, the video went viral. When Thomas resigned from her job, Nessenoff recieved over 25,000 pieces of hate mail, including several death threats.

He maintains a website, RabbiLive.com, which features short video clips and articles about Israel, and interviews with well-known rabbis.

Abraham Cohen is the youngest brother of Eli Cohen, Israel’s most famous spy. Before retiring in 2009, Abraham Cohen was the senior economist for the Industrial Development Bank of Israel, in charge of feasibility studies for the electronics, high-tech, and defense industries.  He currently does volunteer work for the Weizmann Historical Archive and is active in the Association for the Preservation of the Legacy of Eli Cohen.

Rabbi Aryeh Weinstein is the director of the Jay Michael Swartz Jewish Learning Academy and the congregational Rabbi at Kol Yisrael Newtown Shul, in Newtown, Pennsylvania. Both of these institutions are part of Lubavitch of Bucks County. He is a member of the Jewish Learning Institute (JLI) editorial board, and has lectured for the National Jewish Retreat.

Mr. Mark Mellman is C.E.O. of The Mellman Group, a polling and consulting firm whose clients include leading political figures, Fortune 500 companies, and influential public interest groups. Mellman has guided the campaigns of some sixteen U.S. Senators, eight Governors and over two dozen Members of Congress, as well as numerous state and local officials. The Mellman Group has picked up a Republican seat every election cycle for the past twenty-five years, and is the only major Democratic polling firm never to have lost an incumbent reelection for Senate or Governor.

Neria Cohen has traveled the world with her innovative Jewish Meditation and Painting seminars. Originally from South Africa, Neria completed an honors degree in Film and English, and worked in the film industry in New York. After studying Chassidus in Safed, Israel, Neria created workshops that integrate Jewish mysticism and the arts with a focus on Jewish meditation.

Mr. William Kristol: After teaching political philosophy and American politics at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, Kristol served as Chief of Staff to Secretary of Education William Bennett during the Reagan administration, and then as Chief of Staff to Vice President Dan Quayle in the George H. W. Bush administration.  The New Republic dubbed Kristol “Dan Quayle’s brain” when he was appointed the Vice President’s Chief of Staff.

Samuel G. Freedman is a world–renowned columnist for The New York Times who currently writes its On Religion column.  He is also a regular columnist for The Jerusalem Post on American Jewish issues.

Mr. Freedman is a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the author of several bestselling and award winning books.

Ami Eden is the Editor-in-Chief of the JTA, the premier Jewish news service whose articles and columns are syndicated worldwide. He previously served as Executive Editor of The Forward newspaper.