Bio

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.