David J. Wolpe Quote

David J. Wolpe (born September 19, 1958) is an American rabbi. He is Visiting Scholar at Harvard Divinity School and the Max Webb Emeritus Rabbi of Sinai Temple. He previously taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, Hunter College, and UCLA. Wolpe was named the most influential Rabbi in America by Newsweek in 2012, and among the 500 most influential Angelinos in 2016 and 2018. Wolpe now serves as the Inaugural rabbinic fellow for the ADL, and a Senior Advisor for the Maimonides Fund. Wolpe resigned from an advisory group on antisemitism assembled by Harvard President Claudine Gay in December 2023 in response to what Wolpe characterized as a hostile environment to Jews at Harvard.
Wolpe became the focus of international controversy in 2001 when he gave a Passover sermon that questioned the historicity of the Exodus from Egypt. In 2023, he attracted controversy yet again, this time for his negative depiction of non-monotheistic religions in an article published in The Atlantic.
Ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York in 1987, Wolpe is a leader in Conservative Judaism.