Scholars in Residence Programs
In 1977, Rabbi Hier came to Los Angeles to create the Simon Wiesenthal Center, named in honor of famed Nazi hunter, Simon Wiesenthal. Under his leadership, the Center has become one of the foremost Jewish human rights agencies in the world, with a constituency of more than 400,000 families, and offices throughout the United States, in Canada, Europe, Israel and Argentina. In 1993, an article in the Los Angeles Times noted that Rabbi Hier had made the Wiesenthal Center, "the most visible Jewish organization in the world" and, in 2007, an article in Newsweek named him the "number one most influential rabbi in America."View the July 6-13, 2008 Alaskan Explorer via Glacier Bay Cruise
FEATURING: Rabbi Marvin Hier
The Center's educational arm, The Museum of Tolerance, opened in February 1993 to worldwide acclaim. Founded to challenge visitors to confront bigotry and racism and to understand the Holocaust in both historic and contemporary contexts, the Museum hosts over a half million visitors a year, including 110,000 students. Because of the success of its diversity training programs, the New York Tolerance Center opened in Manhattan in February 2004. The Wiesenthal Center is also in the process of creating the Center for Human Dignity-Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem, a 400,000 square foot site located in the heart of the city, designed by renowned architect Frank O. Gehry.
Rabbi Hier is the founder of Moriah, the Center's documentary film division, and has been the recipient of two Academy Awards™.
Noted for his powerful oratory, his views on issues of the day are regularly sought by the international media and his editorials have appeared in newspapers across the United States. Rabbi Hier meets regularly with world leaders to discuss the Center's agenda - a wide range of issues including worldwide antisemitism and hate, the resurgence of neo-Nazism and international terrorism, standing with Israel, defending the safety of Jews worldwide, and teaching the lessons of the Holocaust for future generations.
In 1992 and again in 2003, Rabbi Hier keynoted historic conferences on antisemitism and the struggle for tolerance which were co-sponsored by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and the Wiesenthal Center, both convened at UNESCO's international headquarters in Paris. In 2005, Rabbi Hier led a delegation to the Vatican to participate in a private audience with Pope Benedict XVI to urge him to lead a "Coalition of Good" to combat Iranian threats, suicide bombers and international terrorism. "The greatest threat to mankind comes not from secularists and atheists, but from religious fanatics and zealots," he said. In 2003, he met with Pope John Paul II. At the private audience, he spoke about the worldwide threat of antisemitism and terrorism and the Center's campaign to make suicide bombing a crime against humanity. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, his dialogue with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl led to a critical debate on German reunification and the need for "deutsche memory."
As founder of Moriah Films, Rabbi Hier has been the recipient of two Academy Awards - in 1997 as co-producer of The Long Way Home and in 1981, as co-producer and co-writer for Genocide. He has also written and co-produced the award-winning Echoes That Remain, Liberation, In Search of Peace, Unlikely Heroes, Beautiful Music, and Ever Again. Moriah ‘s latest production, I Have Never Forgotten You: The Life and Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal, is a riveting documentary on Mr. Wiesenthal, narrated by Academy Award™-winning actress Nicole Kidman. The film premiered in Jerusalem, was an official selection at the Berlin Film Festival, and screened at the Tribeca Film Festival, the LA Film Festival, the Seattle Film Festival, and at the Viennale (Vienna Film Festival). I Have Never Forgotten You was the recipient of the 2007 Cinevegas Film Festival Audience Award for Documentary Feature.
Under his direction, the Center has served as consultant to Steven Spielberg's epic Schindler's List and ABC Television's miniseries adaptation of Herman Wouk's novel, War and Remembrance, among others. Rabbi Hier is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
He is the recipient of an honorary degree and many awards - among them, a Doctorate from Yeshiva University (2004) and France's Chevalier dans l'Ordre National du Merite (1993).
View the July 6-13, 2008 Alaskan Explorer via Glacier Bay Cruise
FEATURING: Rabbi Marvin Hier
A distinguished communal Rabbi for over 35 years, Rabbi Riskin continues to change the face of modern Orthodox Jewry in Israel and the Diaspora. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Rabbi Riskin graduated valedictorian, summa cum laude from Yeshiva University in 1960, where he majored in Greek, Latin and English literatures. He received his Smicha (rabbinical ordination) from the eminent Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Rabbi Riskin holds a Master's Degree in Jewish History and was awarded his PhD from New York University's department of Near Eastern Languages and Literature.
View the August 17-24, 2008 Alaskan Explorer via Glacier Bay Cruise
FEATURING: RABBI DR. SHLOMO RISKIN
As a young rabbinical graduate, Rabbi Riskin became the founding rabbi of the Lincoln Square Synagogue in Manhattan, internationally renowned for its outreach to the entire Jewish community, as well as for its educational and social action programs. He became a major spokesperson for Modern Orthodoxy by pioneering the first women's Advanced Talmud Study program (Kollelet) and the first synagogue service conducted for women by women in the early 70's.
In 1983, Rabbi Riskin left his thriving career in Manhattan and pioneered the city of Efrat in Israel's West Bank. Beginning as a small settlement, Efrat now numbers over 11,000 people with 28 synagogues, and is a thriving community in the Gush Etzion bloc.
With hard work, determination, vision and love of the Jewish people and the land of Israel Rabbi Riskin founded the Ohr Torah High Schools for young men and women. Over the past two decades it has developed into an important network of high schools, colleges, graduate programs, a yeshiva, programs in Russia and Great Britain, a rabbinical seminary, a women's college of advanced Torah studies and a school for women advocates. Not content with merely educating students, each year scores of rabbis and teachers are sent to North and South America, England, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Ohr Torah Stone Colleges and Graduate Programs educate over 3,000 students each year from Israel, the U.S., England, Canada, Australia and South Africa.
Rabbi Riskin speaks in communities all over world. His innovative and creative ideology of an authentic Halachic Judaism that is inclusive of every Jew and is exquisitely sensitive to universal human concerns has made him an outstanding figure in the modern Orthodox world. He is the author of five books, "Torah Lights, Exodus Defines the Birth of a Nation", "Women and Jewish Divorce" , "The New Passover Haggadah", AAround The Family Table@, and ATorah Lights, Genesis Confronts Life, Love and Family", scores of articles and monographs on Judaism and contemporary issues, as well as a weekly column which is syndicated worldwide. Given Rabbi Riskin's illustrious career as rabbi and educator, city and institution builder, Rosh Yeshiva and public speaker, author and activist, he has been chronicled in major newspapers, magazines, and on TV and radio. He was described in a New York Times magazine feature article as, "teacher who cares... a charismatic speaker and widely respected Talmudic scholar: Rabbi Riskin sees as his major mission the preparation of a new generation of religious leaders, rooted in Judaism and secular learning, for Israel and the entire Jewish world."
Rabbi Riskin has been married to Victoria since 1963; they have four married children and thirteen grandchildren all living in Efrat.
View the August 17-24, 2008 Alaskan Explorer via Glacier Bay Cruise
FEATURING: RABBI DR. SHLOMO RISKIN
Rabbi Hershel Billet is a YU Musmach with an MA in Jewish History. He is Past President of the RCA , Chairman of their Israel Commission, and on the OU Executive Board. He has been Rabbi of the Young Israel of Woodmere for the past 28 yearsView the July 6-13, 2008 Estonia-Russia-Finland-Sweden Cruise
FEATURING: Rabbi Hershel Billet and Mrs. Renee Billet
Mrs. Renee (Rookie) Billet has a Masters from the NYU Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She lectures on topics related to Jewish women, family, education and community. She has served in both formal and informal Jewish educational settings since her college years. Currently, she is the principal of Ma'ayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls in Teaneck, NJ, having previously served as assistant principal at both the Stella K. Abraham (HALB) High School and Yeshiva University High School for Girls.
View the July 6-13, 2008 Estonia-Russia-Finland-Sweden Cruise
FEATURING: Rabbi Hershel Billet and Mrs. Renee Billet
Rabbi Rafael Grossman is a former special consultant for the Anti Defamation League and has written widely about antisemitism in America and the world. He spent most of his rabbinic career in the South, where he developed close relationships with the national leaders of fundamentalist Christianity. As a leading expert in interreligious affairs, he speaks widely on Christian and European antisemitism.Rabbi Grossman has long friendships with political leaders in both houses of Congress. The State of Israel regularly consults with him on interfaith relations, and has designated him for projects in international diplomacy. A speaker who uses quick wit and anecdotes, he has a reputation for enlightening and inspiring his audiences. He is a scholar respected by Jews of all denominations, and until recently, was chairman of the National Rabbinic Cabinet of Israel Bonds, a transdemoninational body of Conservative, Orthodox, and Reform rabbis.
Rabbi Grossman devoted most of his graduate studies at Dropsie University to the Near East, specifically, Islamic Literature, both historical and contemporary. He has traveled widely in Islamic countries and speaks on Islam's relationship to the Western world.
A past president of the Beth Din of America and the Rabbinical Council of America, Rabbi Grossman is Chairman of the Rabbinical Council International and a member of the Board of the Development Corporation for Israel. He is currently Rabbi of the West Side Institutional Synagogue in Manhattan and the Senior Rabbi Emeritus of Baron Hirsch Congregation in Memphis, the largest Modern Orthodox congregation in America. He is the author of Binah: The Modern Quest for Torah Understanding. His weekly column "Thinking Aloud," which appears in a number of newspapers and on several web sites, is one of the most widely read Jewish columns in the world.
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FEATURING: Rabbi Rafael Grossman