|
Leonid Feldman is a living example of the drama
of modern Jewish history. He has experienced total assimilation, Jewish
rebirth, violent anti-Semitism, imprisonment in Russia as a Zionist activist
and freedom in the West. His life experiences enable him to teach and
lecture on Judaism with a passion and perspective that is unique and exhilarating.
The spiritual leader of Temple Beth
El in West Palm Beach, Florida, an association with The National Jewish Center for Learning
and Leadership (CLAL), and the President of the Ami-Da Institute
for training Russian Jewish leaders, Leonid Feldman is the first and only
Soviet-born Conservative rabbi in America. His emotional return to his
hometown of Kishinev was featured on the NBC TODAY Show as well
as on Israeli national television.
Rabbi Feldman has been a visiting
professor at the Jewish University of Moscow and the Jewish Theological
Seminary in New York. He has served as a scholar for the Wexner Heritage
Foundation and as Director of Education for Soviet Émigrés
in Italy.
Rabbi Feldman has lectured in thirty-seven
states and nineteen countries. He has testified before the United States
Congress and Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and addressed
the California Senate and Florida House of Representatives. In
2000, he delivered the keynote address to over 3,000 people at the UJC
Young Leadership Conference in Washington. In 2002, he was the keynote
speaker at the Evangelical Christian Convention in Nairobi, Kenya.
He has been the subject of feature
articles in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Jerusalem
Post, Miami Herald, Los Angeles Times, Insight
Magazine, Moment and many other general and Jewish publications.
Rabbi Feldman holds graduate degrees in rabbinic
studies from the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, in Education from
the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and in Physics and Theater Arts from
Kishinev State Pedagogical Institute in the U.S.S.R. He is also a Ph.D
candidate in International Relations at University of Miami.
|