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With kavod (honor) to “all whose hearts were stirred to share” (kol asher nasa libam, cf. Exodus 36:2-3), this is a searchable index of all liturgists, translators, transcribers, etc. whose work on Jewish prayer, on prayer books, and on public readings is being shared through the Open Siddur Project. After ten years, the total number of project contributors is nearly 800. A little over half have shared their work either directly with the project with an Open Content license, or indirectly by contributing their work into the Public Domain as a contributor to a government publication. Nearly fifty are institutional copyright stewards (operating or defunct for-profit and non-profit entities). The remaining contributors have had their works transcribed from material that has passed into the Public Domain after their deaths. Some transcribed works shared through the Open Siddur project remain unattributed due to unknown authorship. If you find an uncredited or improperly attributed work, please contact us.
To join this community of contributors, please share your work. Making prayers and related religious works available for creative reuse and republication through Open Content licenses is crucial for keeping Jewish culture cross-pollinating, vital, and relevant under the current climate of denominationally identified silos and proprietary-by-default copyright strictures. Prospective contributors should read our Mission Statement, Terms of Use, and Copyleft Policy. The Open Siddur is a non-prescriptive, non-denominational project and invites participation without prejudice towards ethnic heritage, skin color, nationality, belief or non-belief, sex, gender, sexuality or any other consideration.
Cantor Hinda Labovitz is the cantor/educator of Ohr Kodesh Congregation in Chevy Chase, MD. She graduated with a masters degree in Judaic studies and cantorial ordination Hebrew College in Newton, MA in June of 2014. She has served as a part-time shlichat tsibbur at Congregation Kehillath Israel in Brookline, MA, the ritual director of Temple Emanu-El in Providence from 2009-2012, and and as the assistant to the conductor for the Zamir Chorale of Boston, with whom she was a proud alto from 2006-2014. Hinda maintains http://tekhines.wordpress.com/, where she publishes new and translated editions of tekhines texts.
Anna Lachmann (1860-1932), born in Breslau, was a teacher, author, and poet. We would like to know more about them, our current information being quite limited. If you know more, please contact us.
Joy Ladin, Gottesman Chair in English at Yeshiva University, is the first openly transgender employee of an Orthodox Jewish institution. Her memoir, Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey Between Genders, was a finalist for a National Jewish Book Award, and she was named to the 2012 Forward 50 list of influential or courageous American Jews. A work of creative non-fiction, The Soul of the Stranger, about reading the Torah from a transgender perspective, is due out in 2018 from Brandeis University Press. She is also the author of seven books of poetry, including two Lambda Literary Award finalists, Transmigration and Impersonation. Two new collections, Fireworks in the Graveyard (Headmistress Press) and The Future is Trying to Tell Us Something: New and Selected Poems (Sheep Meadow Press) are coming out in 2017. Her work has been recognized with a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholarship, an American Council of Learned Societies Research Fellowship, and a Hadassah Brandeis Institute Research Fellowship, among other honors. A nationally recognized speaker on trans and Jewish identity, she was recently named to LGBTQ Nation's Top 50 Transgender Americans list. Links to her work can be found at joyladin.com.
Daniel Landau (he/they) is a student from Karmiel, Israel. Daniel is currently doing national service in Tel Aviv, and has volunteered at a school, a trans resource center, and a cat shelter throughout his time there so far. Daniel hopes to continue helping to translate liturgy in the future and is very grateful to all of the people who have helped them at the Open Siddur Project thus far.
Rabbi Morris A. Landes (1917-1997), from nearby Boston, Massachusetts, was an Orthodox rabbi in the United States. Ordained in 1941 from Yeshiva University, he first served the combined congregation of Cneseth Israel in Pittsburgh before arriving at Congregation Adath Jeshurun (Pittsburgh), He was national vice president of the of the Rabbinical Council of America, national vice president of the Zionist Organization of America, among other roles. He was honored by Israel Bonds on two occasions and received the ZOA's highest national honor, its Louis Brandeis Award.
Rabbo Leo Landman (1928-2001) was an Orthodox rabbi and scholar in the United States. He graduated Yeshiva College in 1949 and received his semikhah at Yeshiva University in 1951. At Dropsie College in Philadelphia, he acquired his doctorate. He joined the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies (BRGS) in 1969 as secretary of the faculty and assistant professor of Jewish history and as an adjunct associate professor besides serving as a dean of undergraduate Jewish studies at YU and as a dean for BRGS.. He served as rabbi for Congregation Talmud Torah of Flatbush (Brooklyn, New York) and was active in the Philadelphia Jewish community. He authored Jewish law in the diaspora (1968), The Cantor: an Historic Perspective (1972), Judaism and Drugs (1973), Messianism in the Talmudic era (1979).
Rabbi Max M. Landman, D.D., served Temple Beth El in West Palm Beach, Florida. If you have any more information about him, help us bring honor to him by contributing to this short biography. (Contact us.)
Rabbi Gilah Langner serves as a rabbi, educator, and chaplain in Washington, DC. She is a co-editor of the literary journal for Jewish liturgy and poetry, Kerem. She teaches at The George Washington University and is a coordinator of the Washington Jewish Healing Network.
Mona Lantz Levi, formerly of Bucharest, Romania, lives in Rishon LeZion, Israel.
Sara Lapidot is a Jerusalem based paralegal.
Berl Lapin (1889–1952) was a Yiddish poet and translator. Born in Grodno, he lived in Argentina 1905–09 and 1913–17 and in the U.S. 1909–13, before settling in New York in 1917. His first lyric collection Umetige Vegn ("Sad Ways," 1910) was completed in Vilna, where he had come under he influence of Chaim Zhitlowsky (as whose personal secretary he served) and the literary group Di Yunge. His excellence as a stylist is reflected in his translations of Shakespeare's Sonnets, Russian lyrics, and American poems, and his collected poems Der Fuler Krug ("The Full Pitcher," 1950).
Yeva Lapsker is a translator and dancer.
Israel Meir Lask (1904-1974), born in London, was a journalist and English translator of modern Hebrew stories and poetry.
Yahnatan Lasko is a software developer and engineer with a masters degree in computer science from Johns Hopkins University. Jewish, he is also a second-generation adherent of Messianic Judaism, a movement of Judaizing Christians and Jesus-believing Jews originating out of the Hebrew Christian Movement and the Jesus Movement. Yahnatan identifies as a Messianic Jew and the stream of Messianic Judaism to which he belongs is non-missionary (does not engage in missionary activities), rejects Christian supercessionist beliefs, and looks toward the halakhah of rabbinic Judaism for guidance in ritual and daily living. He is an alumn of Ets Chaiyim day school (Gaithersburg, Maryland) and completed his ordination in Messianic rabbinic and pastoral leadership at the Messianic Jewish Theological Institute. His interests include Jewish/Christian relations, interpreting the New Testament as Jewish texts, disability in halakhah, and theory and practice of Ashkenazi musical nusaḥ.
David Baruch Lau (Hebrew: דוד לאו; born 13 January 1966) is the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel. He was appointed after achieving a majority of the vote on 24 July 2013. He previously served as the Chief Rabbi of Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut, Israel, and as the Chief Rabbi of Shoham. Lau is the son of former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel Yisrael Meir Lau.
Yisrael Meir Lau (ישראל מאיר לאו; born 1 June 1937) served as the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, Israel, and Chairman of Yad Vashem. He previously served as the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1993 to 2003.
Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie is the founding director of Storahtelling, Inc. and the spiritual leader of Lab/Shul. An Israeli-born Jewish educator, writer, and performer, he was hailed by Time Out New York as “Super Star of David,” an “iconoclastic mystic,” and as “one of the most interesting thinkers in the Jewish world” by the New York Jewish Week. He is currently a rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Amichai was a Jerusalem Fellow at the Mandel Leadership Institute in Israel (2008-2009) and is a consultant to the Reboot Network, a member of the URJ Faculty Team, and a fellow of the new Clergy Leadership Institute. He is the proud Abba of Alice, Ezra, and Charlotte-Hallel.
Hillel Lavery-Yisraëli is the rabbi of Israel Center of Conservative Judaism in Queens, New York. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, he did most of his rabbinical training in Jerusalem. He lived in Israel for 16 years, during which time he taught at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem and served as the rabbi of Conservative Congregation Beit Israel in Netanya. From 2012-2015 he served as chief rabbi of Gothenburg, Sweden. Until August 2022, he served as the rabbi of Beth Jacob Synagogue in Hamilton, Canada. In keeping with his position as rabbi, he is an activist for human rights, women’s rights, anti-racism, 2S LGBTQIA+ rights and basic income. He has authored numerous articles, some of which can be seen here and here. Click here to watch his lecture, "Gender, Sexuality and Identity in the Jewish Tradition". More of his instructional videos can be found on youtube here and here. Rabbi Hillel is married to Yonah who is also a rabbi, a soferet and an artist. He is the proud father of four children.
Rabbi Yonah Lavery-Yisraeli lives in Hamilton, Ontario, having previously lived in Toronto, Gothenberg, Sweden, and Jerusalem, where she received most of her rabbinic/traditional education. Yonah’s illustrations of Masekheth Berakhoth have been featured in three exhibitions and have toured numerous art galleries in Israel, Canada, and the United States. She is also a soferet stam with experience in writing sifrei Torah, mezuzot, megillot, ketubot, and gitin. She is familiar with Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Yemenite sofrut conventions.
Morris Samuel Lazaron (1888–1979), was a Reform Jewish rabbi in the United States. Born in Savannah, Georgia, he was ordained by Hebrew Union College in 1914. He served as rabbi in Wheeling, West Virginia, for a year and in 1915 was appointed rabbi of the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, the large and distinguished Reform synagogue in Baltimore where he served for 31 years as rabbi and rabbi emeritus. During World War I, he wrote Side Arms: Readings and Meditations for Soldiers and Sailors (1918). As rabbi he initiated youth-oriented programming, introduced innovative rituals, and was an early supporter of the interfaith movement, working with the National Conference of Catholics and Jews and traveling throughout the United States with a priest and a minister to represent the three faiths of America. Lazaron's retirement from this office in 1949 was linked to his active identification with the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism, of which he was a founder and vice president. This position was not problematic with his congregation until after the Holocaust, and especially after the establishment of the State of Israel. This led to the severing of his relationship with Baltimore Hebrew, including his resignation as rabbi emeritus. He was also a member of the National Council of the American Friends of the Middle East. He wrote several works, including Ask the Rabbi (1928); The Consolidation of Our Father (1928); Homeland or State: The Real Issue (1940); In the Shadow of Catastrophe (1956); Is This the Way? (1942); and Olive Trees in a Storm (1955).
Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887) was a Sepharadi Jewish-American poet, writer, translator, and Georgist from New York City. Her sonnet "The New Colossus" (1883), was inscribed and installed in 1903 on a bronze plaque on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Upon the proscriptive May Laws of 1881 Lazarus rose to the defense of Russian-Jewish immigrants in powerful articles contributed to The Century (May, 1882, and February 1883). Lazarus became more interested in her Jewish ancestry after reading the George Eliot novel Daniel Deronda, and as she heard of the Russian pogroms that followed the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. As a result of this anti-Semitic violence, thousands of destitute Ashkenazi Jews emigrated from the Russian Pale of Settlement to New York. Lazarus began to advocate on behalf of indigent Jewish refugees. She helped establish the Hebrew Technical Institute in New York to provide vocational training to assist destitute Jewish immigrants to become self-supporting. In 1883, she founded the Society for the Improvement and Colonization of East European Jews. An important forerunner of the Zionist movement, Lazarus argued for the creation of a Jewish homeland thirteen years before Theodor Herzl began to use the term "Zionism." Contact with the Jewish emigrés from Russia led her to study Hebrew, Torah, Judaism, and Jewish history. Her Songs of a Semite (1882) is considered to be the earliest volume of Jewish-American poetry.
Gershon Lazarus (also Gershom Lazarus Larendon, 1804-1868) was a member of Congregation Beth Elohim in Charleston, South Carolina and steamboat inspector in the Custom House of the Port of Charleston (1847-1858).
Avraham Leader is an internationally acclaimed teacher of various schools of Kabbalah and a founder of Matzref – The School for the Study of the Prophetic Consciousness Teachings of Rabbi Avraham Abulafia. Avraham has published new editions and translations of primary Kabbalistic texts. His students over the past thirty-five years include teachers, researchers, rabbis and beginners.
Jacob Judah Leaõ, or Leon, (Templo) was born 1603 in Buarcos, Portugal, and died in 1675 in Holland. He was a Dutch ḥakham, teacher, rabbi, translator of the Psalms, draughtsman, and expert on heraldry, of Spanish-Portuguese descent. He became famous for his models of the Tabernacle of Moses and the Temple of Solomon, which received Royal Patronage and approval and which were widely exhibited for many years in Europe and Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Rabbi Barton Gary Lee (1942-2021), from San Antonio, Texas, was for many years the rabbi of the Hillel Jewish Student Center at Arizona State University. As a teen he was the regional president of the Texas-Oklahoma Federation of Temple Youth. He received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University and his rabbinical training from Hebrew Union College at Cincinnati, Ohio. With Rabbi Roy A. Walter, he published My Prayers: A Jewish child’s book of prayers for every day (2011).
Isaac Leeser (December 12, 1806 – February 1, 1868) was an American, Ashkenazi Jewish lay minister of religion, author, translator, editor, and publisher; pioneer of the Jewish pulpit in the United States, and founder of the Jewish press of America. He produced the first Jewish translation of the Bible into English, as well as editions of the liturgy. He is considered one of the most important American Jewish personalities of nineteenth century America.
The esteemed J. Lehrberger & Company (Druck und Verlag, Rödelheim), was the successor to the press of Wolf ben Samson Heidenheim (1757-1832). After Heidenheim's death, the press was operated by Heidenheim's partner Israel Lehrberger, a member of the Rödelheim Jewish community board who held numerous other honorary positions. After Israel's death in 1842, the publishing house continued under the direction of his sons Meyer (Mošeh) and Isaac Lehrberger. After Isaac's death in 1881, his son Siegried joined the company but soon separated from his uncle Meyer's operation. After this, the press was divided between M. Lehrberger & Co. and S. Lehrberger & Co. Felix Kauffmann, a bookseller, bought Meyer's company in 1901 and Siegfried's in 1912, after which the press was reunited under the name M. Lehrberger & Co. (adapted by Aharon Varady from details in an article in the magazine Der Israelit from 26 January 1922 [in German])
Thomas Andrew Lehrer (born 9 April 1928) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, satirist, and mathematician, who later taught mathematics and musical theater. He recorded pithy and humorous songs that became popular in the 1950s and 1960s. His songs often parodied popular musical forms, though they usually had original melodies. Lehrer's early performances dealt with non-topical subjects and dark humor in songs such as "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park". In the 1960s, he produced songs about timely social and political issues, particularly for the U.S. version of the television show That Was the Week That Was. The popularity of these songs has far outlasted their topical subjects and references. Lehrer quoted a friend's explanation: "Always predict the worst and you'll be hailed as a prophet." In the early 1970s, Lehrer largely retired from public performance to devote his time to teaching mathematics and musical theater history at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Rabbi Cantor Meyer Heschl Leifer (1932-), born in the Lower East Side, served as rabbi of Congregation Emunath Israel (the Chelsea Shul) for over four decades (1958-2000). His album, Songs of Our People was released in 1970. His oral history was recorded by the Yiddish Book Center in 2019.
Rabbi Stephen A. Leon is rabbi emeritus of Congregation B'nai Zion of El Paso, Texas, having served from 1986 to the present. He was born in Brooklyn, New York abd graduated from Colombia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, receiving his ordination from the Academy for Jewish Religion. Rabbi Leon was the dean of the Academy for Jewish Religion from 1974 through 1986. He also was an instructor in Homiletics, Practical Rabbinics, and Cantillations. At the same time, Rabbi Leon served as the rabbi of Elmwood Park Jewish Center in New Jersey from 1971 through 1986. He served on the boards of the bioethics committee of Providence Hospital, El Paso Hospice, the Jewish Federation, and the Holocaust Museum. Rabbi Leon wrote numerous articles published in the Paterson News, El Paso Times, and The Jewish Voice of El Paso. He taught in the Religious Studies department of the University of Texas at El Paso. He has appeared on National Public Radio and has made numerous appearances on local television programs. Rabbi Leon has received awards from Israel Bonds, the Israel government Tourist Office, Hadassah, the Bergen County Board of Rabbis, United Synagogue Youth, and others. In 1999, Rabbi Leon received a grant from the El Paso Community Foundation and visited many places in Europe where Crypto-Jews have lived, including Belmont, Portugal where 300 Crypto-Jews formally returned to Judaism. Rabbi Leon is a trusted friend and teacher for the Anusim and has helped many individuals and families make their return to Judaism.
Noam Lerman is a rabbinical student at Hebrew College.
Wolf Leslau (וולף לסלאו; born November 14, 1906 in Krzepice, Vistula Land, Poland; died November 18, 2006 in Fullerton, California) was a scholar of Semitic languages and one of the foremost authorities on Semitic languages of Ethiopia.
Meïr (Max) haLevi Letteris (מאיר הלוי לעטעריס; 13 September 1800 – 19 May 1871) was an Austrian-Jewish poet, editor, and translator of the Galician Haskala. He translated into Hebrew works by Virgil, Lucian, Jean Racine, Lord Byron, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Ludwig August von Frankl, and others.
Rabbi Aryeh Lev (1912-1975), served as director of the Commission on Jewish Chaplaincy of the National Jewish Welfare Board. Rabbi Lev received the Legion of Merit in 1972 for his service with the 314th Infantry the Office of the Chief of Chaplains, the Office of the First Army Chaplain and the Army Chaplains School, on various overseas assignments and as “the key military religious con sultant to the Chiefs of Chaplains on all Jewish denominational matters.” Rabbi Lev came to the Jewish Welfare Board immediately after World War II, in which he was an Army chaplain serving as assistant to the Chief of Chaplains in the War Department. He continued in the Army Reserves in the rank of colonel until his retirement from the Army in 1972. Born in Jerusalem on June 6, 1912, he came here in 1917, graduated from Columbia University and was ordained as a rabbi at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1937. After serving as a rabbi in Lebanon. Pa., he became national director of Young Judea in 1940. From that post he entered the chaplaincy. Rabbi Lev was a former national chaplain of the Jewish War Veterans and a past president of the New York Chapter of the Military Chaplains Association. He was a member of the National Advisory Commission of the United Service Organizations. President Eisenhower appointed him to the President's Council on Youth Fitness in 1957. Rabbi Lev was active in the Boy Scouts of America and the Jewish Committee on Scouting. He served on the advisory board of the Chief of Chaplains of the Air Force and of the Veterans Administration. He was chairman of the Rabbinical Pension Board, a board member of the Jewish Family Service and a member of the National Jewish Relations Advisory Council and of the United States Committee for the United Nations Children's Fund.
Dr. Eve Levavi Feinstein holds a PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University. She is the author of Sexual Pollution in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford University Press, 2014) as well as a variety of academic and popular articles. Dr. Feinstein serves as editorial consultant for TheTorah.com, a program devoted to integrating academic biblical scholarship and Jewish learning, and technical writer for the Open Siddur Project, an open source project developing a digital archive of Jewish liturgical texts. Dr. Feinstein is also the founder of Nisaba Editing where she edits a variety of works for individuals and publishers.
Dan Levene is a lecturer of Jewish history and culture in the Department of History at Southampton University
Annie Josephine Levi (1868-1911) was an American Jewish writer and poet, the daughter of Joseph C. Levi (a prominent lawyer) and Dinah Julia Levi née Emanuel. Annie Levi arranged a prayerbook, Meditations of the Heart in 1900, containing prayers by her and others and with an introduction by Rabbi Gustav Gottheil. Aside from her contributing short stories, poems, essays and letters to periodicals around the turn of the century, we know very little else about this author. By the mid-1890s she was living with her family in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, and later too, at the time of her death in Manhattan, New York. Her paternal grandparents emigrated from England. If you know more about Annie Josephine Levi, please contact us.
David Levi, (1742-1801), a self-taught English Jew, provided both Jews and Christians with basic materials about Judaism in English. Since the English Jewish community of the time knew little or no Hebrew, Levi translated the Sefaradi and Ashkenazi prayer books, and produced expositions and translations of much Jewish lore about ritual and practice. His texts were used by Jewish and Christian writers well into the 19th century.
Dinah Julia Levi (also: 'Di J.', 1839-1924) originally from Linwood, Pennsylvania, was the daughter of Dr. Manley Emanuel, and the wife of the lawyer Joseph C. Levi. In 1869, she sang at the consecration of Congregation Shaarei Tefilah in Manhattan. Two of her personal prayers, upon arising and before sleep, were included in an anthology of private private prayer arranged by her daughter, Annie Josephine in 1900, Meditations of the Heart.
David Lévi Alvarès (October 7, 1794 - July 16, 1870) born in Bordeaux,, was a French teacher and pedagogue. One of the founders of historical education in France, he devoted himself to the teaching of young girls, opening a kindergarten in Paris in 1820 and founding a normal course for female teachers at the Hôtel de Ville in 1833.
Sara Levi-Tanai (Hebrew: שרה לוי-תנאי; c. 1910 – 3 October 2005) was an Israeli choreographer and song writer. She was the founder and artistic director of the Inbal Dance Theater and recipient of the Israel Prize in dance in 1973.
Karen Levine is a member of the clergy team of the Woodstock Jewish Congregation in Woodstock, New York. She is a skilled and creative ritual leader as well as a multi-instrumental musician and visual artist.
Born in Jerusalem, Shira Levine and her family are now part of the pluralistic community living at Kibbutz Hanaton. Shira grew up in a Conservative congregation in Jerusalem and was active in the Noam youth movement and Ramah summer camps. After her army service she went on Shlichut to the Jewish community in Melbourne, Australia. She is an attorney, a graduate of the Law Faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and holds a graduate degree in Talmud and Gender Studies from the Solomon Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies. She has combined her legal work with widespread communal activity at the Tel Aviv Beit Tefilah Israeli, as well as for the Hanaton community. She leads lifecycle events and teaches and facilitates informal Jewish education programs at the Hanaton Educational Center, as well as at summer camps.
Dr. Yael Levine (Heb: יעל לוין) holds a Ph.D. from the Talmud department of Bar-Ilan University. She has published numerous studies focusing on issues related to women and Judaism. She has also composed many prayers and midrashim.
Rabbi Dr. Joel Levenson serves at the Midway Jewish Center in Syosset, NY. He earned a doctorate in Pastoral Care & Counseling from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he also received a Masters Degree in Jewish Education. He earned a B.A. from Miami University in Oxford, OH with degrees in Psychology and Political science, with studies abroad at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Originally from Akron, OH, in 1991 he served as International President of United Synagogue (USY). He is an alumnus of the Jewish Leaders Program, an initiative of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He serves on the Board of the Long Island Board of Rabbis. In addition, he enjoys time each summer at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires, a sleepover camp, serving in many capacities that reflect his love of fun-based education and inspiration.
Rabbi Clifton Harby Levy (1867–1962), was a Reform rabbi in the United States. Born in New Orleans, he was ordained at Hebrew Union College (1890), served as rabbi of Congregation Gates of Hope, New York City (1890–91), and as superintendent of classes for immigrant children established by the Baron de Hirsch Fund. Levy later served congregations in Lancaster, Pennsylvania (1892–94) and Baltimore, Maryland (1894–96), where he organized a Jewish kindergarten in a religious school and the first United Hebrew Charities. He founded Tremont Temple, Bronx, New York, and was its rabbi from 1906 to 1921. He left the pulpit rabbinate in 1921 and in 1924 organized the Centre of Jewish Science, New York City. As part of the Jewish Science movement, it sought to counter the influence of Christian Science among acculturated American Jews and to inject spirituality into the Reform Jewish synagogue. He was a founding member of the American Council for Judaism, which consisted primarily of anti-Zionist Reform rabbis and laymen. While still a student, Levy published a five-act Purim play, Haman and Mordecai (1886). During his stay in Baltimore he edited Jewish Comment. He edited The Bible in Art (1936) and The Bible in Pictures (1942), and served as art editor of the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia.
JewishBoston.com is a website for Jews in Boston where you can find an immediate connection to all the amazing Jewish things that are happening in Boston right now. Discover links to cultural events (music, dance, film, lectures, cooking classes), Jewish education (courses, lectures, trips), organizations (synagogues, community centers, professional networking) and lots more.Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) created the world of JewishBoston.com so that, finally, there is an easy-to-find, vibrant online place to connect Jews, especially young Jews, with one another and the community at large. No more endless searching for ways to experience Jewish life. JewishBoston.com is a natural extension of CJP and was born out of the realization that a new way of thinking was needed to bring the community together.
Rabbi Eugene Levy, born in El Paso, is a Reform movement rabbi in the United States. Raised in San Antonio, Texas, he attended the University of Texas and was ordained in 1972 at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, Ohio. Rabbi Levy served for three years as the director of the Hillel at the University of Oklahoma before coming to Congregation Beth El (Tyler, Texas) in 1975. In 1987, he came to Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas. He is the author of A Privileged Encounter: My Unique Experience with President Bill Clinton, 1987-2000 (2015).
Rabbi Mordecai Levy (1928-2011), from Malden, Massachusetts, was a Conservative movement rabbi and Jewish educator in the United States. Ordained at JTS, Rabbi Levy held several post-graduate degrees, including a doctorate from Dropsie University in Philadelphia. An Air Force veteran of the Korean War, Rabbi Levy volunteered at the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa and served as a chaplain at the hospital. He also had served as a prison chaplain for many years. He served at pulpits in and around Tampa, Florida: Temple Ohev Shalom, Temple Emanuel, Congregation Aliya in Clearwater.
Rabbi Theodore S. Levy (April 16, 1926 - November 11, 2004) born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was a Reform movement rabbi in the United States. Levy received a B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh and went on to receive many other degrees, including a Master of Sacred Theology from Temple University, a Master of Hebrew Letters from Hebrew Union College, and an Honorary Doctor of Divinity from Hebrew Union College in 1976. He was ordained a rabbi in 1951 at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio. (As a student, he played the organ for services at the Hebrew Union College.) Levy served at Keneseth Israel in Philadelphia, until 1952 when he left for Ohev Sholom in Huntington, West Virginia where he stayed until 1959. After three years at Temple Israel in Waterbury, Connecticut, Levy was appointed associate rabbi at the Temple Society of Concord in Syracuse, New York, where he became senior rabbi in 1969. Levy was the 3rd rabbi in 110 years at Temple Society of Concord which is the 11th oldest Jewish congregation in the U.S. He remained in Syracuse until his retirement in August 1989. After retirement in 1989, Levy was called to help Congregation Beth Yam, a newly formed congregation on Hilton Head, South Carolina. There, he also played viola in the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra. Levy guest lectured at Marshall University in West Virginia. In a groundbreaking move in 1967, Levy became the first rabbi to be appointed to teach at Le Moyne College, a Jesuit institution. For over 20 years he taught Introduction to Judaism and The Development of Jewish Thought, and eventually became the senior professor in the department. He also taught in Canada. In addition to teaching, Levy devoted much of his time to community work and was active in many organizations. One of his early experiences of service came during the time he spent in work camps in Belgium and France through the American Friends Service Committee in 1950. Levy also served as Vice President of the Syracuse Jewish Federation and was active in the Rotary Clubs, where he became a Paul Harris Fellow. Levy became a 32nd Degree Mason. This was achieved at the request of Temple Israel in Waterbury, Connecticut, to open the way for other Jewish men to have the opportunity to also achieve this position in Masonry which, until this time, had been closed to Jews. Of particular importance to Levy were interfaith relations and bridging the gap between those from different backgrounds where he lived. He served on the board of the Syracuse Interfaith Committee on Religion and race. In the mid 1970s, he was named the founding president of the Syracuse Interreligious Council. As member of the Central Conference of American Rabbis for over 50 years, Levy participated in its Interreligious Activities Committee. Levy also brought his interfaith message to the public through his monthly column “From the Rabbi’s Study” which appeared in the Catholic Sun starting in 1973. Throughout his life, Levy was committed to the preservation of Jewish history. He accompanied Jacob Rader Marcus on his 1952 and 1962 archival expeditions to retrace the steps of Jews who were expelled from Spain after 1492. The 1952 expedition was to the Caribbean, and the 1962 trip was to the Jerusalem as well as the European cities of London, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Paris, Madrid, and Rome. On these trips, Levy served as Marcus’ assistant and helped him find and secure materials for transport to the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati, Ohio. Levy was also a founding member of the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina.
Rabbi Isidore Lewinthal (1852-1922), born in Seelow, Germany, served as rabbi of Ḳ.Ḳ. Ohavai Shalom (Vine Street Temple) in Nashville, Tennessee. Educated in Europe, he was ordained in 1873 by Rabbi James Koppel Gutheim. He served as a rabbi in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and at Congregation Beth-El in San Antonio, Texas before arriving in Tennessee. After joining Vine Street Temple in 1888, he remained in Nashville for the remainder of his life, additionally serving as the president of the Federation of Jewish Charities in Nashville, and vice president of the Tennessee State Board of Charities. Besides contributing articles to magazines and newspapers, short biographies note he also published a work,Scripture Questions, although we have been unable to locate a copy. (If you know more, please contact us.)
Rabbi Annie Lewis is currently the Director of Rabbinic Formation at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, where she oversees field education for students. Rabbi Lewis was ordained from The Jewish Theological Seminary in 2012, received a master’s degree in Jewish women’s and gender studies and was awarded a Wexner Graduate Fellowship. She served as Assistant Rabbi of Germantown Jewish Centre from 2012-2016. Rabbi Lewis has served as a visiting rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in Gulfport, Mississippi and has led community organizing trainings with JOIN for Justice. Annie studied linguistic anthropology at Brown University and at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. She fell in love with Judaism at Camp Ramah in the Poconos, delved into Torah at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem and spent a year as a madricha (counselor) for the Conservative Movement's Nativ College Leadership program in Israel. Rabbi Lewis has been in training as a couples and family therapist and brings this relationship toolkit to supporting people through life transitions and to officiating at life cycle events. She is a singer, poet and performance artist with roots in the Storahtelling ritual theater company.
Theodore Lewis (1915-2010), born in Dublin, Ireland, led Congregation Jeshuat Israel (Touro Synagogue) in Newport, Rhode Island for 36 years, beginning in 1949. He studied in the Mir Yeshiva in Poland from from 1935 to 1939. On 30 June 1959, he appeared on the television program, To Tell the Truth. He published two works: Sermons at Touro Synagogue (1980) and a companion volume, Bar Mitzvah Sermons at Touro Synagogue (1989).
The Liberal Jewish Synagogue, or LJS (קהל קדוש לב חדש, Qahal Qadosh Lev Ḥadash), is a house of prayer in St John's Wood, London, founded in 1911. It is the oldest and largest member of Britain's Liberal Judaism, a constituent member of the World Union for Progressive Judaism.
Rabbi Yerachmiel Ber (Rachmiel) Liberman (ca. 1960s-2019) was rabbi of Congregation Lubavitch Synagogue of Chestnut Hill, South Brookline and West Roxbury in Massachusetts. He received semikhah and an advanced degree in Jewish Jurisprudence from Rabbi Pinchas Hirshprung, Chief Rabbi of Canada, and from Yeshiva Tomchei Tmimim. He served as the Administrator of Diamond-K Kashrus agency, and drafted and sponsored the Massachusetts Kosher Law. He was also the Executive Director of the Jewish Educational Center of Massachusetts.
Rabbi Morris Lichtenstein (1889–1938) was the founder of the Society of Jewish Science. Born in Lithuania, he later moved to Cincinnati, Ohio where he was ordained at Hebrew Union College in 1916, becoming the first Eastern European student to ever study at the institution. Lichtenstein served as a rabbi in Amsterdam, Troy, and New York City, where he received a masters degree in Psychology from Columbia University in 1919. He briefly served a congregation in Athens, Georgia before moving back to New York to marry Tehilla Hirshenson in 1920. Together they founded the Society of Jewish Science in the early 1920s.
Rabbi Max Lilienthal (November 6, 1815 – April 6, 1882) was a German-born adviser for the reform of Jewish schools in Russia and later a rabbi and proponent of Reform Judaism in the United States. Lilienthal served as a rabbi for several years after his arrival in New York City in 1845, including at the Anshe Chesed Synagogue. He opened a Jewish school in 1850. In 1855, he moved to Cincinnati to become an editor of The American Israelite and serve as rabbi of Congregation Bene Israel. As a rabbi in Cincinnati, he promoted Reform Judaism. He wrote for several publications and was an advocate for both Jewish and secular schools, teaching at Hebrew Union College and serving on the Cincinnati board of education. Lilienthal was later an active supporter of the movement to abolish slavery in the United States, though a minority of American Jews, primarily those in the South, were themselves slaveholders and disagreed strongly with his position.
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th president of the United States (1861–1865) and died in office upon his assassination. Lincoln led the nation through its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis in the American Civil War. He preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the U.S. economy.
John Linder is rabbi of Temple Solel in Paradise Valley, Arizona. Before coming to Temple Solel, Rabbi Linder served as a rabbi at Congregation B’nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim in Glenview, Illinois. Rabbi Linder received a Masters in Hebrew Letters and was ordained at the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati in 2003. A 1980 Cum Laude graduate of Amherst College, Rabbi Linder became a rabbi at age 46 after earlier careers as a community and labor organizer and as an executive in his family’s scrap-metal recycling business in Buffalo.
Rabbi Chaim Uri Lipschitz (1912-2002), born in Jerusalem, was an Orthodox rabbi and author in the United States. He served as director of the yeshivah, Mesivta Talmudical Seminary (Brooklyn, New York). He wrote Discrimination in banking; a survey in depth (1970), ספר אורי חיים : על ענינים שונים (1980, 1982), Betrothed Forever (1980), Franco, Spain, the Jews, and the Holocaust (1984) and נס הצלה The Shanghai Connection (1987), a story of the rescue of the Mir Yeshiva during the Holocaust, אשכבתא דצדיקיא (1990), and with Neil Rosenstein, The Feast and the Fast: The Dramatic Personal Story of Yom Tov Lipman Heller (1984). We know very little else about Rabbi Lipschitz. If you can add additional details to this short bio, then please contact us.
Rabbi Alona Lisitsa, originally from Kiev, Ukraine, is a Reform rabbi at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem. She is the first female rabbi in Israel to join a religious council (Mevasseret Tsiyon in 2012).
Herbert Martin James Loewe (1882–1940) was a noted scholar of Semitic languages and Jewish culture. Loewe was a graduate of Queens' College, Cambridge. He was Chief English Master at the Schools of the Alliance at Cairo and Abyassiyyeh, Egypt, and the author of Kitab el Ansab of Samani. Loewe was a lecturer in Semitic languages at Exeter College, Oxford, from 1913 until 1931 when he accepted an academic position at Cambridge. Just before he left Oxford, he was responsible for the installation of three tablets in honor of Oxford Jewish heritage. The tablets celebrate the Centenary of the birth of Neubauer, who was a noted Jewish librarian in the Bodleian. Loewe was Curator of Oriental Literature, University Library, Cambridge, and Reader in Rabbinics, Cambridge, from 1931 to his death. From 1939-1940 Loewe was president of the Society for Old Testament Study.
Tamari Lomtadze is a professor in the Department of Georgian Philology at Akaki Tsereteli State University (ATSU, Kutaisi, Georgia) and a senior researcher at Arnold Chikobava Institute of Linguistics at Iv. Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (Tbilisi, Georgia).
Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo is the founder and Dean of the David Cardozo Academy, Machon Aron and Betsy Spijer, in Jerusalem. He is the author of many books on Jewish Law and Philosophy and lectures in more than fifty Institutions of Jewish and secular learning around the world. He pens a weekly “Thoughts to Ponder” which is sent electronically. To receive: please sign up at cardozoacademy.org.
Rabbi Michael Lotker is Rabbi Emeritus at Temple Ner Ami in Camarillo, California, Rabbi of the Jewish Community of Ojai, and the Community Rabbi for the Jewish Federation of Ventura County. He is a second career rabbi having been ordained at age 55 from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in 2003. Rabbi Lotker is also a physicist who spent his first career in alternative energy focusing on wind, solar and geothermal energy. An entrepreneur, he started a number of alternative energy firms including a wind power development company that installed and operated wind farms in Hawaii and California. Rabbi Lotker holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Physics from Queens College in New York City and from the University of Illinois and is widely published in the alternative energy field. Prior to his ordination from HUC-JIR (the Reform movement's rabbinic seminary) in 2003, he received his Master of Hebrew Letters degree from this same institution. Rabbi Lotker is a member of the Central Conference of America Rabbis and the Board of Rabbis of Southern California.
Rabbi Thomas A. Louchheim, MAHL, L.D.Div. is the rabbi of Congregation Or Chadash since its beginning in 1995. He was ordained in 1987 and went on to serve as an assistant Rabbi for two years in Kansas City. He moved to Tucson with his wife, Marcia, in 1989, where he was rabbi at Temple Emanu-El for five years. He then served for two years as an executive at Handmaker Hospice. Since becoming the spiritual leader of Congregation Or Chadash, he has served as the Co-Chair of the annual Yom HaShoah service, has been president of the Tucson Board of Rabbis, and a board member for Habitat for Humanity, Tucson Jewish Family and Children's Services, and Handmaker. If you look up to the heavens, you might see the only space object named after a rabbi: asteroid 9584 Louchheim. Rabbi and Marcia Louchheim have been married for over 25 years and are the proud parents to Katie, Jacob, Daniel, and Benjamin.
David Hizkiahu Baruch Louzada (1750–1825) was the the ḥazzan of Ḳ.Ḳ. Beraha VeSalom and keeper of the cemetery and its register in Jodensavanne, Suriname.
Yaakov (James) A. Love (Hebrew: יַעֲקוֹב שָׁלוֹמִי לוּב
) is a Scrum Master in Austin, Texas. He graduated from Texas State University with a double BA in Computer Science and Philosophy. He also completed some graduate work in Jewish Studies from the Laura and Alvin Siegal College of Judaic Studies. Love currently serves as president of Congregation Shalom Rav (Austin's Reconstructionist and Renewal congregation).
Alice Julia Lucas (née Montefiore) (2 August 1851 – 25 March 1935) was a British Jewish poet, translator, and communal worker. Alice Julia Montefiore was born in 1851, the elder daughter of Nathaniel M. Montefiore and Emma Goldsmid. Alongside her brother Claude Montefiore, she studied Judaism under Solomon Schechter at the Hochschule in Berlin. On 24 April 1873 she married barrister Henry Lucas, who later served as treasurer and vice-president of the United Synagogue. In 1900 she helped establish the Jewish Study Society, modelled after the Council of Jewish Women, of which she served as the first president. Lucas also sat on the women's committee of the Westminster Jews' Free School and its preparatory nursery, the Jews' Infant School.
Yitsḥak Luria Ashkenazi (1534 – July 25, 1572) (Hebrew: יִצְחָק בן שלמה לוּרְיָא אשכנזי, English: Isaac ben Solomon or Yitzhak ben Shlomo Lurya Ashkenazi), commonly known as "Ha'ARI" (meaning "The Lion"), "Ha'ARI Hakadosh" [the holy ARI] or "ARIZaL" [the ARI, Of Blessed Memory (Zikhrono Livrakha)], was a foremost rabbi and Jewish mystic in the community of Safed in the Galilee region of Ottoman Syria. He is considered the father of contemporary Kabbalah, his teachings being referred to as Lurianic Kabbalah. The works of his disciples compiled his oral teachings into writing and spread his fame which led to his veneration and the acceptance of his authority. Every custom of the Ari was scrutinized, and many were accepted, even against previous practice. Luria died at Safed on July 25, 1572 (5 Av 5332). He was buried in the Old Cemetery of Safed (from wikipedia)
Rabbi Jacob Luski is rabbi emeritus of Congregation B’nai Israel (CBI) of St. Petersburg, Florida. He was born in Havana, Cuba and immigrated with his family to the United States when he was 11. Rabbi Jacob Luski graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1971 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Management. From there, he enrolled in the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, New York, where he received his Master of Arts in 1974, and then continued at JTS to graduate from Rabbinical School, At CBI, he established meaningful educational experiences and activities such as the JTS Tampa Bay Outreach Lecture Series, the first Mitzvah Day in Pinellas County, and Congregational trips to Israel. He also established the Hevra Kadisha Burial Society to ensure respectful and spiritual care for Jewish people after death. For 26 years, he has been the Jewish Chaplain at the VA Medical Center, Bay Pines, Florida. Both he and his wife Joanne, were instrumental in founding the Pinellas County Jewish Day School, welcoming the school on the CBI campus as it grew over it’s first 11 years. Rabbi Luski founded the Vaad Kashrut of Pinellas County, to ensure Kosher supervision for local hotels, restaurants, and caterers. After retiring from Congregation B’nai Israel in June of 2018 and earning the title of Rabbi Emeritus, he continues his support of Israel as the 17th Chairperson of the International Rabbinic Advisory Council of the State of Israel Bonds.
Rabbi M. Bruce Lustig is Senior Rabbi at Washington Hebrew Congregation, where he has served for more than 25 years. Along with the daily responsibilities of leading a more than 2,800 family congregation, Rabbi Lustig has long held leadership roles in the local and national Jewish communities. He has served on the Washington, D.C. Mayor's Faith Advisory Board and as the National Liaison for National Day of Prayer. A committed social activist, Rabbi Lustig initiated Mitzvah Day at Washington Hebrew Congregation, which has become an international model for social justice programming. Rabbi Lustig is a proactive leader of Washington, D.C.'s interfaith community and organized the nation's first Abrahamic Summit, bringing together Christians, Jews, and Muslims for dialogue. Newsweek recognized him as one of "America's most influential rabbis." Ordained at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Rabbi Lustig also holds a doctorate of divinity and a master's degree in Hebrew letters. He earned a bachelor's degree with honors from the University of Tennessee.
Rabbi Hershel Lutch is an advocate for the American Jewish community and has served in leadership roles within several prominent Jewish organizations, including Aish HaTorah.
Acting on behalf of the American Jewish Historical Society, the Lyons Collection Committee, chaired by Leon Huhner, was responsible for curating and publishing a major collection of papers gathered by Jacques Judah Lyons (1813-1877). Besides Huhner, the committee consisted of Albert M. Friedenberg, Herber Friedenwald, N. Taylor Phillips, and David de Sola Pool. Translations published from this collection by the Society were not attributed further than this committee.
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