Yeshiva University pegs ex-NYC pulpit rabbi as president

A search committee has recommended Rabbi Ari Berman, a former New York Jewish community leader who now lives in the West Bank settlement of Neveh Daniel, as the next president of Yeshiva University.

In an email sent Tuesday to members of the YU community, the chairman of its board of trustees, Moshael Straus, said the search committee is “advancing the candidacy” of Berman to succeed Richard Joel.

“Over the coming weeks, Dr. Berman will meet with trustees, faculty and other key university stakeholders and acquaint himself with the University, after which it is anticipated his nomination will be forwarded to the Board of Trustees,” Straus wrote.

Earlier this week, Berman emerged as the top candidate in a search that began with Joel’s announcement last September he would be stepping down in 2018 as president of the flagship institution of modern Orthodoxy.

Berman, a product of both YU’s college and its affiliated rabbinical seminary, served for 14 years as a rabbi at The Jewish Center, a prominent modern Orthodox congregation on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, before immigrating to Israel in 2008.

Berman was promoted from assistant rabbi to lead The Jewish Center in 2000. The congregation, which has been home to many YU donors and lay leaders, is something of a leadership farm team for the school. A previous rabbi of the synagogue, Norman Lamm, left to become YU president and head of yeshiva in 1976. Another, Rabbi J.J. Schachter, is now a professor at YU and a senior scholar at its Center for the Jewish Future.

During his time in Israel, Berman earned a doctorate in Jewish thought at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He now serves as rosh hamerkaz, or head of the center, at Hechal Shlomo, The Jewish Heritage Center in Jerusalem. He is also an instructor at Herzog College, a teachers’ college in the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut, outside Jerusalem.