Rabbi Michael Melchior

Biography

Rabbi Michael Melchior comes from Denmark where for seven generations his family members have served as Chief Rabbis.  He received rabbinic ordination at Yeshivat HaKotel in Jerusalem in 1980 and returned to Scandinavia to serve as Rabbi of the Norwegian Jewish Community.

In 1999, he was elected to the Knesset as the Meimad Party's representative and appointed to Ehud Barak’s Cabinet as Minister for Israeli Society and the World Jewish Community. He served in successive governments as Deputy Foreign Minister, Deputy Minister of Education, and Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's office. From 2006 to 2009, he served as Chairman of the Knesset committee for Education, Culture and Sports and the Knesset Caucus on the Environment. Rabbi Melchior became been one of Israel’s leading legislators initiating and completing major legislative reforms in the areas of education, children’s rights, environment, and social justice.

Today, Rabbi Melchior is no longer serving in the Knesset. He has turned his focus to leading the civil society movements that he helped build over the last decade. Rabbi Melchior launched Moe'tzet Yachad, a forum which promotes dialogue and understanding between different strands in Israeli society; Meitarim, a network of pluralistic Jewish schools whose open, democratic ethos enables religious and secular students to study their heritage together; the Citizen's Accord Forum, which campaigns for coexistence between Arabs and Jews in Israel and the correction of injustices against Israel's Arab minority; and the Mosaica Center for Interreligious Cooperation, which is devoted to expanding and deepening inter-religious dialogue in the Middle East on a grassroots basis.

Rabbi Melchior was the founding chairman of the Birthright/Taglit steering committee, and he has brought his religious leadership and political influence to bear on many other issues, including activity on behalf of Agunot and efforts to resolve the problems of conversion which effect Jewish communities around the world. He also serves as the Rabbi of a dynamic Orthodox synagogue in Jerusalem and is actively involved in the Norwegian Jewish Community, where he still holds the honorary position of Chief Rabbi.

Rabbi Michael Melchior

Biography

Rabbi Michael Melchior comes from Denmark, where for seven generations his family members have served as Chief Rabbis.  He studied at Yeshivat HaKotel in Jerusalem and in 1980 received rabbinic ordination after which he returned to Scandinavia to serve as Rabbi of the Norwegian Jewish Community.

In 1986, Rabbi Melchior moved to Israel, where among other activities, he served as International Relations Director for the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. Nine years later, when Israel's Prime-minister Yitzhak Rabin was murdered by a religious extremist, Rabbi Melchior decided to extend his drive for high ethical standards from the synagogue to national politics. In 1999, he was elected to the Knesset as the Meimad Party's representative and was shortly thereafter appointed to Ehud Barak’s Cabinet as Minister for Israeli Society and the World Jewish Community. This was the first time that portfolio was elevated to a cabinet-level position.

He continued these responsibilities during the first Sharon government, while serving as Deputy foreign Minister under Shimon Peres. In the second Sharon government, Rabbi Melchior served as a Deputy Minister for Education, and later as Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's office. From 2006 to 2009, he served as Chairman of the Knesset committee for Education, Culture and Sports.

Rabbi Melchior takes particular interest in the social fabric of Israeli Society which he believes must be built on the basis of tolerance, equal rights and equal opportunities. To this end Rabbi Melchior has been one of Israel’s leading legislators initiating and completing major legislative reforms in the areas of education, children’s rights, environment, and social justice.

Today, Rabbi Melchior is no longer serving in the Knesset. He has turned his focus to leading the civil society movements that he helped build over the last decade.

Areas of activity

Recognizing that religious extremism and the tensions between religious and secular Jews are deeply damaging to Israeli Society, Rabbi Melchior launched Moe'tzet Yachad; a forum which promotes dialogue and understanding between different strands in Israeli society. He has also established Meitarim, a network of pluralistic Jewish schools whose open, democratic ethos enables religious and secular students to study their heritage together. Meitarim is creating a paradigm shift toward a shared pluralistic Jewish social agenda in Israeli society.

Rabbi Melchior does not restrict his activities to the Jewish population of Israel. He passionately believes that building bridges with the local Israeli-Arab and Palestinian populations is central to the preservation of Jewish values and essential to a shared future in the Middle East. Rabbi Melchior, therefore, served as Chair of the Knesset Caucus for Jewish-Arab relations and he established Citizen's Accord Forum between Jews and Arabs in Israel which campaigns for coexistence between the two peoples and the correction of injustices against Israel's Arab minority.

Recognizing that much of the tension between Jews and Muslims has its roots in religious prejudice and ignorance, Rabbi Melchior with the support of world religious leaders initiated the Alexandria Declaration in which the religious leaders of all the major communities in the Holy Land agreed to work towards peaceful resolution of conflicts. Rabbi Melchior is heavily involved in the realization of this vision and has forged partnerships with leading religious, educational and political figures in the Muslim community to establish the Mosaica Center for Interreligious Cooperation in Israel.

Through his career in the rabbinate, his leading role in the campaign for Soviet Jewry and his ongoing connection to the global Jewish people, Rabbi Melchior has gained enormous insight into the concerns and workings of Diaspora Jewish communities. It was therefore natural that he be invited to become the first-ever cabinet minister with the portfolio of world Jewry, a position he held in three successive governments. This placed him in the forefront of the international fight against anti-Semitism, the restitution of the property of Holocaust victims and the campaign to maintain close relations between the Diaspora and the State of Israel.

His love of Israel and his deep connection to the world Jewish community led him to be among the earliest supporters of the Birthright Trips to Israel. He chaired the Birthright steering committee for its first five years. This organization has brought over 200,000 young Jews to explore their heritage in Israel, causing many of them to reevaluate their Jewish identity and to become involved in the Jewish community.

Rabbi Melchior has brought his religious leadership and political influence to bear on many other issues including his work as chair of the Knesset caucus on the environment, activity on behalf of Agunot and efforts to resolve the problems of conversion which effect Jewish communities around the world.

Rabbi Melchior is the recipient of several awards, including the Norwegian Prize for Tolerance and Bridge-Building awarded in the Nobel Institute, the Church of England's Coventry Peace Prize for his contribution to world peace, the Liebhaber Prize for the Promotion of Religious Tolerance and Cultural Pluralism, five Green Globus Prizes for the years 2004-2009 for his contribution in the area of the environment, and the 2009 Quality Government Knight prize from the Movement for Quality Government in Israel.

He also serves as the Rabbi of a dynamic Orthodox synagogue in Jerusalem and is actively involved in the Norwegian Jewish Community where he still holds the honorary position of Chief Rabbi.

Rabbi Melchior is married to Hanna, an occupational therapist, and is the father to five children.