David Rosen (rabbi)

David Rosen was born in 1951 in Newbury, Berkshire, England.[3] He is the son of Rabbi Kopul Rosen and was educated at Carmel College in Wallingford, the school his father founded.[7] He was subsequently educated in Israel, received rabbinic ordination (smicha), and served in the Israel Defense Forces as a chaplain to forces in the western Sinai.[3] In 1973 he married Sharon Rothstein.[3]

Rosen's rabbinical career began in South Africa, where he served as senior rabbi of the Green and Sea Point Hebrew Congregation in Cape Town — South Africa's largest Orthodox Jewish congregation — and as a judge on the Cape Beth Din.[7][4] During the 1970s, his opposition to apartheid, rooted in Jewish teachings about justice, drew him into early interfaith work: he collaborated with rabbis, priests, pastors, and imams, and founded and chaired the Cape Inter-Faith Forum, also known as the Council of Jews, Christians and Muslims.[3] His daughters received death threats, his home telephone was tapped, and the family's temporary work visa was not renewed, leading them to leave South Africa.[3]

Rosen then became Chief Rabbi of Ireland, serving from 1979 to 1985.[7] During that period he sat on the Academic Council of the Irish School of Ecumenics and, in 1981, founded the Irish Council of Christians and Jews — described as Ireland's first interfaith organization — which promoted understanding through public lectures and interfaith conferences.[3] He also participated in state-television broadcasts for Jewish holidays, giving him a public presence in predominantly Christian Ireland.[3]

After returning to Israel in 1985, Rosen became dean of the Sapir Center for Jewish Education and Culture in Jerusalem's Old City and later professor of Jewish Studies at the Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies.[3] He also held several roles with the Anti-Defamation League: director of Interfaith Relations in Israel, co-liaison to the Vatican, and, from 1997, director of the ADL Israel office.[3] In 1991, he co-founded the Inter-Religious Coordinating Council in Israel, an umbrella body connecting 75 Christian, Palestinian/Muslim, and Jewish institutions intended to promote Jewish-Arab coexistence.[3] He also co-founded Rabbis for Human Rights in 1998 and received that organization's Raphael Lemkin Human Rights Award in December 2006.[3]

Since spring 2001, Rosen has led AJC's international interreligious-affairs work; AJC currently lists him as its Jerusalem-based Director of International Interreligious Affairs and director of the Heilbrunn Institute for International Interreligious Understanding.[3][1] He also serves as International President of Religions for Peace, Honorary President of the International Council of Christians and Jews, a member of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel's delegation for relations with world religions, and the Jewish representative on the board of the King Abdullah International Center for Interreligious Dialogue.[1] He is also Special Interfaith Advisor to the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi.[4]

A central focus of Rosen's diplomatic work has been the transformation of Jewish-Catholic relations. He was a member of the Permanent Bilateral Commission of the State of Israel and the Holy See, which concluded its negotiations at the end of 1993 with the signing of a Fundamental Agreement that set the stage for full diplomatic relations between Israel and the Vatican in 1994.[6] He was subsequently invited to address the news conference announcing the agreement and to highlight its significance.[3] Rosen characterized the broader transformation in Jewish-Catholic relations as a "180-degree turn in human history."[8]

The Chief Rabbinate of Israel later invited Rosen to join its official delegation for interreligious dialogue with the Holy See, and he participated in the direct bilateral commission between the Chief Rabbinate and the Vatican proposed by Pope John Paul II during his visit to Israel.[6][8] He represented the Chief Rabbinate of Israel at the 2011 Assisi gathering convened by Pope Benedict XVI, where some 300 religious dignitaries joined for reflection and dialogue for peace.[9] He edited the publication Turning the Tide of Christian-Jewish Relations: The Delegations of the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel's Commission for Relations with the Catholic Church, Joint Statements 2003–2013.[5]

On the Second Vatican Council declaration Nostra Aetate, Rosen argued that its most significant change was "to see the existence of the Jewish People in a positive light and with a positive integrity/purpose in its own right," and he emphasized the document's injunction not to present Jews as rejected or accursed by God.[2] He also described the obligation of engaging respectfully with the Christian world as one of Kiddush Hashem — sanctifying the Divine Name in the world — rather than merely a pragmatic strategy against antisemitism.[10]

A 2023 study of Christian-Jewish relations notes Rosen's involvement in major Jewish response documents, including "Dabru Emet" ("Speak the Truth"), a Jewish statement on Christians and Christianity, and "To Do the Will of Our Father in Heaven: Toward a Partnership between Jews and Christians." The latter was authored and signed by the Conference of European Rabbis, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, and the Rabbinical Council of America, and was presented to Pope Francis in 2017.[5]

When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, Rosen said the choice would bring continuity to Catholic-Jewish relations, describing Ratzinger as deeply committed to the issue and noting that his national background made him sensitive to antisemitism and to the importance of Jewish-Catholic reconciliation.[11] Rosen later observed that Benedict had embedded commitments to the Jewish people more deeply in the Vatican's institutional structure, taking synagogue visits and meetings with Israeli leaders further than his predecessor had done.[12]

Beyond the Jewish-Catholic sphere, Rosen has engaged extensively with Muslim leaders and institutions. In February 2000 he became the first rabbi and first Israeli received by the king of Saudi Arabia at his palace in Riyadh, and he subsequently met King Abdullah twice and served as the only Jewish member of the board of the King Abdullah International Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Relations.[3] In 2022, he attended a multifaith gathering hosted by the Muslim World League in Riyadh, themed "Promoting Common Values Among the Followers of Religions," at which he was the only rabbi present from Israel; the gathering brought together leaders from Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, and Muslim communities.[13]

At a 2017 AJC interfaith seminar in Essaouira, Morocco, Rosen spoke about Muslim-Jewish dialogue and the preservation of Jewish life in Morocco. There he argued that "religion needs to be part of the solution" rather than avoided as part of the problem, while acknowledging that Muslim-Jewish relations had not always been perfect and urging participants to highlight positive aspects of that shared history.[14] At the 2008 World Conference on Dialogue in Madrid, Rosen offered a response to a fellow panelist articulating a vision of dialogue as seeking to understand the other as the other understands oneself.[15]

In reflecting on his path into interfaith work, Rosen has described entering dialogue from a commitment to social justice, which he regards as foundational to Jewish teachings and values. He has noted that in apartheid-era South Africa, dialogue was one of the few ways to oppose government policies without risking imprisonment or expulsion.[8] His work has included interfaith representation and education, mediation, peace-building, and multi-religious engagement on ecological issues.[8]

In a 2004 article published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Rosen argued that Israel should work more deliberately with Christian communities rather than assume the churches could not be constructive partners in combating antisemitism.[10] He described Nostra Aetate as a watershed in Christian teaching about Jews and Judaism, and discussed subsequent Catholic and Protestant statements repudiating antisemitism.[10]

Rosen argues that religious identity and culture constitute dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that religious leaders should be included in peace processes, complementing rather than replacing politicians in negotiations.[8] He has also advocated for veganism on Jewish ethical grounds, arguing that modern livestock practices make the consumption of meat from such sources "halachically unacceptable" and connecting the position to Jewish ethical concerns about animals and environmental damage. He and his wife raised their daughters as ethical vegetarians, and he serves as honorary president for Israel of the International Jewish Vegetarian and Ecology Society.[3]

In a 2021 interview, Rosen assessed how Catholic changes in teaching about Jews had taken hold, observing that reception varied with social and economic conditions, proximity to Jewish communities, urban residence, and education. He described many people as retaining "pre-conciliar perceptions" and noted that in many seminaries knowledge of the post-Second Vatican Council changes was not required or was treated vaguely, with implementation weaker in parts of Eastern Europe and among people with little contact with Jews.[5]

Rosen has been identified as a key figure in the development of contemporary Christian-Jewish relations, while his work has received recognition from religious and civil authorities.[5] Pope Benedict XVI appointed him a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great in November 2005 for contributions to Jewish-Catholic reconciliation — the first Israeli citizen and first Orthodox rabbi to receive the honor.[7][3] Queen Elizabeth II appointed him a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2010 for promoting interfaith understanding and cooperation.[8] In March 2016, he received the Archbishop of Canterbury's Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation at a ceremony at Lambeth Palace.[3] On that occasion, Rosen said he viewed the honor as recognition of the Jewish community's contribution to society and as a tribute to those working in Jewish-Christian and interfaith relations.[16]