Avi Shafran

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Rabbi Avi Shafran is a Haredi rabbi who serves as the Director of Public Affairs for Agudath Israel of America, an organization established to meet the needs and viewpoint of many Haredi Jews in the United States.

Shafran is widely known in the Jewish world as a writer and lecturer. He is the author of a weekly column that is syndicated in the Jewish press in the United States and other anglophone countries, as well as in English language publications in Israel. Many of his articles are directed at a wider Jewish audience, including less observant Jews, and are designed to explain this tradition.

He is very critical of the Jewish Conservative movement's claim of halachic legitimacy. He publicly opposes the possibility of Israel recognizing the legality of Reform and Conservative personal status ceremonies (ie. marriage, divorce, and conversion).

His commentaries are published weekly in the Haredi journal Cross-Currents^[1], and are often available at the Jewish World Review as well.

Rabbi Shafran was the principal of a Jewish Day School in Providence Rhode Island prior to his appointment at the Agudah organization. He presently resides in Staten Island, New York. He is the author of Migrant Soul ^[2], "the story of a descendant of full-blooded American Indians who married an assimilated Jewess" and then began a "spiritual quest" that ended with both as Orthodox Jews. He is also an author of JewThink ^[3], a book on basics of Judaism.