Speaker Profile Rabbi Dr. Avi Berkowitz

Rabbi Avi Berkowitz, Ph.D, is the founder and president of Kosher Italian Wine LTD, the sole importer of Conti degliAzzoni wines (kosher only) in Israel. Rabbi Dr. Berkowitz is on faculty at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel, and is the Rabbi of the Minyan Ha’Ma’ayan synagogue in the Rimon section of Efrat. He holds a Ph.D. in political science with a specialty in Middle East studies from Columbia University in New York City and he received his Rabbinical Ordination – yoreh yoreh yadin yadin – from Rabbi Aaron Soloveitchik, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Brisk of Chicago and at Yeshiva University in New York City. Before coming on Aliya, Rabbi Dr. Berkowitz taught History at the Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein Upper School of Ramaz on Manhattan's Upper East Side, and was the Rabbi of the Community Synagogue Max D. Raiskin Center in Manhattan's East Village. Rabbi Dr. Berkowitz was also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the City University of New York, where he taught courses on the Middle East and across the Political Science curriculum.