Rabbi Asher Lopatin

Rabbi Asher Lopatin is the spiritual leader of Anshe Sholom B’nai Israel Congregation, a leading modern Orthodox synagogue in Chicago.  He received his ordination from Rav Ahron Soloveichik and Yeshivas Brisk in Chicago, and from Yeshiva University in New York as a Wexner Graduate Fellow. He holds an M.Phil. in Medieval Arabic Thought from Oxford University as well as a BA in International Relations and Islamic Studies from Boston University.  His doctoral work, also at Oxford University, has been on Islamic Fundamentalist attitudes toward Jews.  In that connection he has authored a chapter in Muslim Jewish Relations, titled: “The Uncircumcised Jewish Heart in Islamic and Qur’anic Thought”, and has written articles for Sh’ma and other publications regarding Islamic fundamentalism.

Rabbi Lopatin won a Rhodes Scholarship in 1987 from Massachusetts. He has also been a Truman Scholar, Boston University Trustee Scholar and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.  His interest in being a pulpit rabbi stemmed from a large degree from his leadership in Jewish life at Hillel at Boston University and at the Jewish Society at Oxford University.  He has been honored by his Yeshiva, Yeshivas Brisk, as alumni of the year in 1996 and by the American Jewish Congress as a 1998 Young Leadership Awardee.  He was also honored by his alma mater Maimonides School in Brookline, MA, founded by Rabbi Joseph Dov Soloveitchik, zt"l, as the Pillar of Maimonides for the year 2000.  Rabbi Lopatin is married to Rachel Tessler Lopatin (MSW from Columbia University) who is a Jewish communal worker and a native of Detroit.  In 2001 they were awarded the Keter Torah Award by the Associated Talmud Torahs of Chicago.  Together they are the proud parents of Shayna Charlotte Lopatin and Cara Abigail Lopatin.

 

Rabbi Lopatin is a member of the executive committee of the Chicago Rabbinical Council and of the Rabbinical Council of America; he chairs the Affiliation Subcommittee of the Synagogue Federation Commission and sits on the Governing Commission of the Hillels of Illinois. The Jewish Council for Urban Affairs, Edah, Religious Zionists of America and the New Israel Fund have all named Rabbi Lopatin to their Rabbinic Advisory Committees.  Rabbi Lopatin is a fellow of the Shalom Hartman’s Center for Rabbinic Enrichment and is
a portion-of-the-week columnist for the Chicago Jewish News,  frequently contributing articles to local and national Jewish papers.