Newsweek’s Top 50 Rabbis in America

Newsweek Magazine has published a list of America’s Top 50 Rabbis, compiled using a complicated scoring system created by Jay Sanderson (CEO of JTN Productions), Michael Lynton (Sony Pictures CEO) and Gary Ginsberg (Newscorp).  Here are the top 20 (links and bracketed material provided by JCI):

1.      Marvin Hier (O) Dean and Founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Museum of Tolerance and Moriah Films — “one phone call away from almost every world leader, journalist and Hollywood studio head.” 

2.      Yehuda Krinsky (Lubavitch) CEO of Chabad — “has truly built a ‘shul’ on every corner and brought the Chabad movement mainstream prominence.”  [Wikipedia entry here].

3.      Uri D. Herscher (R) founding President and CEO of the Skirball Cultural Center – “has built arguably America’s most culturally relevant Jewish institution.”

4.      Yehuda Berg (O) author and spiritual advisor at the Kabbalah Centre – “has made wearing the ‘red string’ a popular phenomena in America and around the world and turned on everyone from Madonna to club hopping young Jews to the power of the Kabbalah.”

5.      Harold Kushner (C) author of nine inspirational books, including international bestseller When Bad Things Happen to Good People – “one of America’s truly gifted speakers and teachers.”

6.      David Ellenson (R) President of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion – “a trail blazer committed to bring this generation’s Reform Jewish Rabbis and teachers closer to traditional Judaism.”

7.      Robert Wexler (C) President of the University of Judaism [named a Best Western College for 2006 by Princeton Review and now, as of last week, the American Jewish University after an historic merger with the Brandeis-Bardin Institute] – “has re-envisioned Jewish education and created the largest Jewish continuing education program in America while building a premier Rabbinical school and liberal arts college.”

8.      Irwin Kula (C) Co-President of CLAL, a Public Television host and the author of Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life” — “committed to ‘taking Jewish public’ and reshaping America’s spiritual landscape.”

9.      Shmuley Boteach (C) “has been called ‘the most famous Rabbi in America’ and his 17 books, TLC television series and celebrity friends help make that case.  His book Kosher Sex introduced this Hasidic Rabbi as a cultural phenomena.”

10.  M. Bruce Lustig (R), Rabbi of Washington Hebrew Congregation, the largest congregation in Washington, DC – “Each year on Yom Kippur, Lustig has an audience that even the President of the United States would envy.”

11. Peter J. Rubinstein (R)” – “the spiritual leader of NY’s Central Synagogue.”12. Eric Yoffie (R) President of the Union of Reform Judaism.

13.  Harold M. Schulweis (C) – “considered the leading Conservative Rabbi of his generation.” [Valley Beth Shalom in Encino].

14.  Saul J. Berman (O) — “considered one of the most forward thinking Jewish scholars of his generation.”  [Bio here].

15.  Zalman Teitelbaum (Hasidim) – [Wikipedia entry here].

16.   David Saperstein (R) “Director of the Religious Action Center and a leading Washington lobbyist.”

17.   J. Rolando Matalon (C) “spiritual leader of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun.”

18.   David Wolpe (C) Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles – “Wolpe is now considered one of the most dynamic pulpit Rabbis in America (also an author [of six books]).”  [Latest sermon, “Why the Internet is Not Enough,” is here; latest musing, “The Folly of Proof,” is here].  [Wikipedia entry here].

19.  Sharon Kleinbaum — Senior Rabbi of the world’s largest synagogue for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Jews” [Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in New York City].

20.  Dan Ehrenkrantz (Reconstructionist), Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.

Not that the next 30 are chopped liver:  they include Joseph Telushkin, Irving Greenberg, Abraham Cooper, Elliot Dorff, Rachel Cowan, Naomi Levy and Mordechai Finley.