, a leading Rabbinical authority for Orthodox Jewry of the second half of the twentieth century.]] In Judaism, a rabbi (, Hebrew for "great one, master", but can mean "teacher" (רב)) is a religious teacher.

The basic form of the rabbi developed in the Pharisaic and Talmudic era, when learned teachers assembled to codify Judaism's written and oral laws. In more recent centuries, the duties of the rabbi became increasingly influenced by the duties of the Protestant Christian minister, hence the title "pulpit rabbis", and in 19th century Germany and the United States rabbinic activities including sermons, pastoral counseling, and representing the community to the outside, all increased in importance.

Within the various Jewish denominations there are different requirements for rabbinic ordination, and differences in opinion regarding who is to be recognized as a rabbi. All types of Judaism except for Orthodox Judaism ordain women as rabbis and cantors .

The word 'rabbi'

Etymology and history

The word rabbi derives from the Hebrew root word , rav, which in biblical Hebrew means ‘great’ in many senses, including "revered". The word comes from the Semitic root R-B-B, and is cognate to Arabic ربّ rabb, meaning "lord" (generally used when talking about God, but also about temporal lords). As a sign of great respect, some great rabbis are simply called "The Rav".

Rabbi is not an occupation found in the Torah (i.e. the Pentateuch) and ancient generations did not employ related titles such as Rabban, Ribbi, or Rab to describe either the Babylonian sages or the sages in Israel. The titles "Rabban" and "Rabbi" are first mentioned in the Mishnah (c. 200 CE). The term was first used for Rabban Gamaliel the elder, Rabban Simeon his son, and Rabban Johanan ben Zakkai, all of whom were patriarchs or presidents of the Sanhedrin. A Greek transliteration of the word is also found in the books of Matthew, Mark and John in the New Testament, where it is used in reference to Jesus.

Pronunciation

Sephardic and Yemenite Jews pronounce this word ribbī; the modern Israeli pronunciation rabbī is derived from an 18th century innovation in Ashkenazic prayer books, although this vocalization is also found in some ancient sources. Other variants are rəvī and, in Yiddish, rebbə. The word could be compared to the Syriac word rabi ܪܒܝ.

In ancient Hebrew, rabbi was a proper term of address while speaking to a superior, in the second person, similar to a vocative case. While speaking about a superior, in the third person one could say Ha-Rav ("the Master") or Rabbo ("his Master"). Later, the term evolved into a formal title for members of the Patriarchate. Thus, the title gained an irregular plural form: רַבָּנִים Rabbanim ("rabbis"), and not רַבָּי Rabbai ("my Masters").

Honor

There is a mitzvah to stand up for a Rabbi or Torah Scholar when they enter your presence. However, if one is more learned than the Rabbi there is no need to stand. One must also stand for the spouse of a Rabbi or Torah Scholar and address them with the utmost respect. In many places today and throughout history, Rabbis and Torah Scholars had the power to place individuals who insulted them in excommunication. Kohanim, like everyone else, are required to honor Rabbis and Torah Scholars.

The definition of a Torah Scholar is complex and subjective.

Historical overview

The governments of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah were based on a system of Jewish kings, prophets, the legal authority of the court of the Sanhedrin and the ritual authority of priesthood. Members of the Sanhedrin had to receive their semicha ("ordination") derived in an uninterrpted line of transmission from Moses, yet rather than being referred to as "rabbis" they were more frequently called judges (dayanim) akin to the Shoftim or "Judges" as in the Book of Judges.

All of the above personalities would have been expected to be steeped in the wisdom of the Torah and the commandments, which would have made them "rabbis" in the modern sense of the word. This is illustrated by an two-thousand-year-old teaching in the Mishnah, Ethics of the Fathers (Pirkei Avot), which observed about King David,

:"He who learns from his fellowman a single chapter, a single halakha, a single verse, a single Torah statement, or even a single letter, must treat him with honor. For so we find with David King of Israel, who learned nothing from Ahitophel except two things, yet called him his teacher [Hebrew text: "rabbo"], his guide, his intimate, as it is said: 'You are a man of my measure, my guide, my intimate' (Psalms 55:14). One can derive from this the following: If David King of Israel who learned nothing from Ahitophel except for two things, called him his teacher, his guide, his intimate, one who learns from his fellowman a single chapter, a single halakha, a single verse, a single statement, or even a single letter, how much more must he treat him with honor. And honor is due only for Torah, as it is said: 'The wise shall inherit honor' (Proverbs 3:35), 'and the perfect shall inherit good' (Proverbs 28:10). And only Torah is truly good, as it is said: 'I have given you a good teaching, do not forsake My Torah' (Psalms 128:2)." (Ethics of the Fathers 6:3)

With the destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem, the end of the Jewish monarchy, and the decline of the dual instititutions of prophets and the priesthood, the focus of scholarly and spiritual leadership within the Jewish people shifted to the sages of the Men of the Great Assembly (Anshe Knesset HaGedolah). This assembly was composed of the earliest group of "rabbis" in the more modern sense of the word, in large part because they began the formulation and explication of what became known as Judaism's "Oral Law (Torah SheBe'al Peh). This was eventually encoded and codified within the Mishnah and Talmud and subsequent rabbinical scholarship, leading to what is known as Rabbinic Judaism.

Sages

The title "Rabbi" was borne by the sages of ancient Israel, who were ordained by the Sanhedrin in accordance with the custom handed down by the elders. They were titled Ribbi and received authority to judge penal cases. Rab was the title of the Babylonian sages who taught in the Babylonian academies.

After the suppression of the Patriarchate and Sanhedrin by Theodosius II in 425, there was no more formal ordination in the strict sense. A recognised scholar could be called Rab or Hacham, like the Babylonian sages. The transmission of learning from master to disciple remained of tremendous importance, but there was no formal rabbinic qualification as such.

Middle Ages

Maimonides rules that every congregation is obliged to appoint a preacher and scholar to admonish the community and teach Torah, and the social institution he describes is the germ of the modern congregational rabbinate. In the fifteenth century in Central Europe, the custom grew up of licensing scholars with a diploma entitling them to be called Mori (my teacher). At the time this was objected to as hukkat ha-goy (imitating the ways of the Gentiles), as it was felt to resemble the conferring of doctorates in Christian universities. However the system spread, and it is this diploma that is referred to as semicha (ordination) at the present day.

18th-19th century

In 19th century Germany and the United States, the duties of the rabbi became increasingly influenced by the duties of the Protestant Christian Minister, hence the title "pulpit rabbis". Sermons, pastoral counseling, representing the community to the outside, all increased in importance. Non-Orthodox rabbis, on a day-to-day business basis, now spend more time on these traditionally non-rabbinic functions than they do teaching, or answering questions on Jewish law and philosophy. Within the Modern Orthodox community, rabbis still mainly deal with teaching and questions of Jewish law, but are increasingly dealing with these same pastoral functions. Orthodox Judaism's National Council of Young Israel and Modern Orthodox Judaism's Rabbinical Council of America have set up supplemental pastoral training programs for their rabbis.

Traditionally, rabbis have never been an intermediary between God and humans. This idea was traditionally considered outside the bounds of Jewish theology. Unlike spiritual leaders in many other faiths, they are not considered to be imbued with special powers or abilities.

In an ironic twist, the secular system in most states requires that a Jewish wedding be performed by an ordained rabbi in order to be legally recognized, even though there is no such requirement in Jewish law. In other words, the secular system treats rabbis as the Jewish equivalent to Catholic Priests or Protestant Ministers, although they are not religious equivalents.

Authority

Acceptance of rabbinic credentials involves both issues of practicality and principle.

As a practical matter, communities and individuals typically tend to follow the authority of the rabbi they have chosen as their leader (called by some as the mara d'atra) on issues of Jewish law. They may recognize that other rabbis have the same authority elsewhere, but for decisions and opinions important to them they will work through their own rabbi.

The same pattern is true within broader communities, ranging from Hasidic communities to rabbinical or congregational organizations: there will be a formal or de facto structure of rabbinic authority that is responsible for the members of the community.

Ordination

Traditionally, a person obtains semicha ("rabbinic ordination") after the completion of an arduous learning program in the codes of Jewish law and responsa.

The most general form of semicha is Yore yore ("he shall teach"). Most Rabbis hold this qualification; they are sometimes called a moreh hora'ah ("a teacher of rulings"). A more advanced form of semicha is Yadin yadin ("he shall judge"). This enables the recipient to adjudicate cases of monetary law, amongst other responsibilities. Although the recipient can now be formally addressed as a dayan ("judge"), the vast majority retain the title rabbi. Only a small percentage of rabbis earn this ordination. Although not strictly necessary, many Orthodox rabbis hold that a beth din (court of Jewish law) should be made up of dayanim.

===Orthodox Judaism===

An Orthodox semicha requires the successful completion of a rigorous program encompassing Jewish law and responsa in keeping with longstanding tradition. Orthodox rabbinical students work to gain knowledge in Talmud, Rishonim and Acharonim (early and late medieval commentators) and Jewish law. They study sections of the Shulchan Aruch (codified Jewish law) and its main commentaries that pertain to daily-life questions (such as the laws of keeping kosher, Shabbat, and the laws of family purity). Orthodox rabbis typically study at yeshivas, which are dedicated religious schools. Modern Orthodox rabbinical students, such as those at Yeshiva University, study some elements of modern theology or philosophy, as well as the classical rabbinic works on such subjects.

The entrance requirements for an Orthodox yeshiva include a strong background within Jewish law, liturgy, Talmudic study, and attendant languages (e.g., Hebrew, Aramaic and in some cases Yiddish). Since rabbinical studies typically flow from other yeshiva studies, those who seek a semicha are typically not required to have completed a university education. There are some exceptions to this rule, including Yeshiva University , which requires all rabbinical students to complete an undergraduate degree before entering the program and a Masters or equivalent before ordination. Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School also requires an undergraduate degree before entering the program.

Haredi Judaism

While some Haredi (including Hasidic) yeshivas (also known as "Talmudical/Rabbinical schools or academies") do grant official semicha ("ordination") to many students wishing to become rabbis, most of the students within the yeshivas engage in learning Torah or Talmud without the goal of becoming rabbis or holding any official positions.

The curriculum for obtaining semicha ("ordination") as rabbis for Haredi and Hasidic scholars is the same as described above for all Orthodox students wishing to obtain the official title of "Rabbi" and to be recognized as such.

Women do not, and cannot, become rabbis in Orthodox Judaism. Only men can do so, and only after a long process of study in, and recognition by, their own yeshivas.

Within the Hasidic world, the positions of spiritual leadership are dynastically transmitted within established families, usually from fathers to sons, while a small number of students obtain official ordination to become dayanim ("judges") on religious courts, poskim ("decisors" of Jewish law), as well as teachers in the Hasidic schools. The same is true for the non-Hasidic Litvish yeshivas that are controlled by dynastically transmitted rosh yeshivas and the majority of students will not become rabbis, even after many years of post-graduate kollel study.

Some yeshivas, such as (in New York) and (in Baltimore, Maryland), may encourage their students to obtain semicha and mostly serve as rabbis who teach in other yeshivas or Hebrew day schools. Other yeshivas, such as Yeshiva Chaim Berlin (Brooklyn, New York) or the Mirrer Yeshiva (in Brooklyn and Jerusalem), do not have an official "semicha/rabbinical program" to train rabbis, but provide semicha on an "as needs" basis if and when one of their senior students is offered a rabbinical position but only with the approval of their rosh yeshivas.

Consequently, within the world of Haredi Judaism, the English word and title of "Rabbi" for anyone is often scorned and derided, because in their view the once-lofty title of "Rabbi" has been debased in modern times. This is one reason that Haredim will often prefer using Hebrew names for rabbinic titles based on older traditions, such as: Rav (denoting "[great] rabbi"), HaRav ("the [great] rabbi"), Moreinu HaRav ("our teacher the [great] rabbi"), Moreinu ("our teacher"), Moreinu VeRabeinu HaRav ("our teacher and our rabbi/master the [great] rabbi"), Moreinu VeRabeinu ("our teacher and our rabbi/master"), Rosh yeshiva ("[the] head [of the] yeshiva"), Rosh HaYeshiva ("head [of] the yeshiva"), "Mashgiach" (for Mashgiach ruchani) ("spiritual supervsor/guide"), Mora DeAsra ("teacher/decisor" [of] the/this place"), HaGaon ("the genius"), Rebbe ("[our/my] rabbi"), HaTzadik ("the righteous/saintly"), "ADMOR" ("Adoneinu Moreinu VeRabeinu") ("our master, our teacher and our rabbi/master") or often just plain Reb which is a shortened form of rebbe that can be used by, or applied to, any married Jewish male as the situation applies.

Note: A rebbetzin (a Yiddish usage common among Ashkenazim) or a rabbanit (in Hebrew and used among Sephardim) is the official "title" used for, or by, the wife of any Orthodox, Haredi, or Hasidic rabbi. Rebbetzin may also be used as the equivalent of Reb and is sometimes abbreviated as such as well.

Conservative and Masorti Judaism

Conservative Judaism confers rabbinic ordination after the completion of a rigorous program in the codes of Jewish law and responsa in keeping with Jewish tradition. Additional requirements include the study of: the Hebrew Bible, Mishna and Talmud, the Midrash literature, Jewish ethics and lore, the codes of Jewish law, the Conservative responsa literature, both traditional and modern Jewish works on theology and philosophy.

Conservative Judaism has less stringent study requirements for Talmud and responsa study compared to Orthodoxy but adds following subjects as requirements for rabbinic ordination: pastoral care and psychology, the historical development of Judaism; and academic biblical criticism.

Entrance requirements to a Conservative rabbinical study include a strong background within Jewish law and liturgy, knowledge of Hebrew, familiarity with rabbinic literature, Talmud, etc., and the completion of an undergraduate university degree. Rabbinical students usually earn a secular degree (e.g., Master of Hebrew Letters) upon graduation. Ordination is granted at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles, the Rabbinical School of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, the Schechter Institute for Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, the Jewish Theological Seminary – University of Jewish Studies of Budapest and the Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano in Buenos Aires (Argentina).

All Conservative seminaries train women as rabbis and cantors.

Reform Judaism

Reform Judaism is a liberal form of Judaism. Its rabbinic studies are mandated in pastoral care and psychology, the historical development of Judaism, and academic biblical criticism. In addition, practical rabbinic experience, such as working at a small congregation as a student rabbi one weekend or month or interning at a larger synagogue as a student rabbi is required.

All Reform seminaries train women as rabbis and cantors.

The seminary of Reform Judaism in the United States is Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. It has campuses in Cincinnati, New York City, Los Angeles, and in Jerusalem. In the United Kingdom the Reform and Liberal movements maintain Leo Baeck College for the training of rabbis, and in Germany the progressive Abraham Geiger College trains Europeans for the rabbinate.

Seminaries unaffiliated with main denominations

There are several possibilities for receiving rabbinic ordination in addition to seminaries maintained by the large Jewish denominations. These include seminaries maintained by smaller denominational movements, and nondenominational (also called "transdenominational" or "postdenominational") Jewish seminaries. The Union for Traditional Judaism (UTJ), an offshoot of the left-wing of Orthodoxy and the right-wing of Conservative Judaism, has a seminary in New Jersey; the seminary is accepted by all non-Orthodox rabbis as a valid, traditional rabbinical seminary. The vast majority of Orthodox Jews do not recognize ordination from UTJ. However, it bridges Conservative and Orthodox Judaism, and Modern Orthodox synagogues have hired UTJ rabbis. Though the more mainstream body of Modern Orthodox Judaism, such as the Rabbinical Council of America, does not recognize ordination from UTJ. UTJ only ordains men.

The Jewish Renewal movement has an ordination program, ALEPH, but no central campus. Orthodox Judaism holds that this program does not produce valid rabbis. Women are ordained as cantors and rabbis in the Jewish Renewal movement.

The Academy for Jewish Religion, in New York City, since 1956, and the unrelated Academy for Jewish Religion-California, in Los Angeles, since 2000, have been rabbinic (and cantorial) seminaries unaffiliated with any denomination or movement. Hebrew College, near Boston, includes a similarly unaffiliated rabbinic school, opened in the Fall of 2003. These seminaries are accepted by all non-Orthodox rabbis as valid rabbinical seminaries, and they all ordain women as well as men. Orthodox Jews do not consider these ordinations valid, because these seminaries do not consider Orthodox halacha to be binding.

Humanistic Judaism has the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, which currently has two centers of activity: one in Jerusalem and the other in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Both places ordain women as well as men.

Reconstructionist Judaism has the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, which is located in Pennsylvania and ordains women and men as rabbis and cantors.

Mizrahi Netzarim Judaism has the Cushite Hebrew Yeshiva, which is non-messianic Yeshiva that follows Mizrahi customs of North African Jews and is located in Atlanta. They offers Rabbinical, Kohanim, Jewish Pastor Studies in addition to other options of study such as Holistic Medicine through traditional Apprenticeship methods of training(Rabbi to disciple or Doctor to Student), Graduates receive Masters of Hebrew Letters or Masters of Netzarim Hebrew Theology depending on leadership apprenticeship concentration sought.

Interdenominational recognition

Cyprus chief Rabbi with Cyprus president Dimitris Christofias]] Historically and until the present, recognition of a rabbi relates to a community's perception of the rabbi's competence to interpret Jewish law and act as a teacher on central matters within Judaism. More broadly speaking, it is also an issue of being a worthy successor to a sacred legacy.

As a result, there have always been greater or lesser disputes about the legitimacy and authority of rabbis. Historical examples include Samaritans and Karaites.

The divisions between the various religious branches within Judaism may have their most pronounced manifestation on whether rabbis from one movement recognizes the legitimacy and/or authority of rabbis in another.

As a general rule within Orthodoxy and among some in the Conservative movement, rabbis are reluctant to accept the authority of other rabbis whose Halakhic standards are not as strict as their own. In some cases, this leads to an outright rejection of even the legitimacy of other rabbis; in others, the more lenient rabbi may be recognized as a spiritual leader of a particular community but may not be accepted as a credible authority on Jewish law.

The Orthodox rabbinical establishment rejects the validity of Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis on the grounds that their movements' teachings are in violation of traditional Jewish tenets. Some Modern Orthodox rabbis are respectful toward non-Orthodox rabbis and focus on commonalities even as they disagree on interpretation of some areas of Halakha (with Conservative rabbis) or the authority of Halakha (with Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis).

Conservative rabbis accept the legitimacy of Orthodox rabbis, though they are often critical of Orthodox positions. Although they would rarely look to Reform or Reconstructionist rabbis for Halakhic decisions, they accept the legitimacy of these rabbis' religious leadership.

Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis, on the premise that all the main movements are legitimate expressions of Judaism, will accept the legitimacy of other rabbis' leadership, though will not accept their views on Jewish law, since Reform and Reconstructionism reject Halakha as binding.

These debates cause great problems for recognition of Jewish marriages, conversions, and other life decisions that are touched by Jewish law. Orthodox rabbis do not recognize conversions by non-Orthodox rabbis. Conservative rabbis recognise all conversions done according to halakha. Finally, the North American Reform and Reconstructionst movemements recognize patrilineality, under certain circumstances, as a valid claim towards Judaism, whereas Conservative and Orthodox maintain the position expressed in the Talmud and Codes that one can be a Jew only through matrilineality (born of a Jewish mother) or through conversion to Judaism.

Women

, the world's first female rabbi, ordained in 1935, killed in the Holocaust in 1944. .]]

With some rare exceptions (see below), women historically have generally not served as rabbis until the modern era. Today all types of Judaism except for Orthodox Judaism allow and do have female rabbis .

In Orthodox Judaism, women cannot become rabbis, although there is no prohibition against women learning halakhah that pertains to them, nor is it any more problematic for a woman to rule on such issues than it is for any lay person to do so. Rather, the issue lies in the rabbi's position of communal authority. Following the ruling of the talmud, the decisors of Jewish law held that women were not allowed to serve in positions of authority over a community, such as judges or kings. The position of official rabbi of a community, mara de'atra ("master of the place"), has generally been treated in the responsa as such a position. This ruling is still followed in traditional and orthodox circles but has been relaxed in branches like Conservative and Reform Judaism that are less strict in their adherence to traditional Jewish law.

There were some rare cases of women acting as rabbis in earlier centuries, such as the 17th century Asenath Barzani, who acted as a rabbi among Kurdish Jews . Hannah Rachel Verbermacher, also known as the Maiden of Ludmir, was a 19th century Hasidic rebbe, the only female rebbe in the history of Hasidism.

The first formally ordained female rabbi was Regina Jonas, ordained in Germany in 1935 . Since 1972, when Sally Priesand became the first female rabbi in Reform Judaism, Reform Judaism's Hebrew Union College has ordained 552 women rabbis (as of 2008).

Sandy Eisenberg Sasso became the first female rabbi in Reconstructionist Judaism in 1974 , (one of 110 by 2006); and Amy Eilberg became the first female rabbi in Conservative Judaism in 1985 (one of 177 by 2006). Lynn Gottlieb became the first female rabbi in Jewish Renewal in 1981 , and Tamara Kolton became the very first rabbi (and therefore, since she was female, the first female rabbi) in Humanistic Judaism in 1999 . In 2009 Alysa Stanton became the world's first African-American female rabbi.

In Europe, Leo Baeck College had ordained 30 female rabbis by 2006 (out of 158 ordinations in total since 1956), starting with Jackie Tabick in 1975.

The consensus of the Orthodox Jewish community has been that women are ineligible to becoming rabbis; the growing calls for Orthodox yeshivas to admit women as rabbinical students have resulted in widespread opposition among the Orthodox rabbinate. Rabbi Norman Lamm, one of the leaders of Modern Orthodoxy and Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva University's Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, opposes giving semicha to women. "It shakes the boundaries of tradition, and I would never allow it." (Helmreich, 1997) Writing in an article in the Jewish Observer, Moshe Y'chiail Friedman states that Orthodox Judaism prohibits women from being given semicha and serving as rabbis. He holds that the trend towards this goal is driven by sociology, and not halakha ("Jewish law"). In his words, the idea is a "quirky fad." No Orthodox rabbinical association (e.g. Agudath Yisrael, Rabbinical Council of America) has allowed women to be ordained using the term rabbi.

However, in the last twenty years Orthodox Judaism has begun to develop clergy-like roles for women as halakhic court advisors and congregational advisors. Some Orthodox Jewish women now serve in Orthodox Jewish congregations in roles that previously were reserved for males, specifically rabbis. The term rabbanit is sometimes used for women in this role.

In Israel, the Shalom Hartman Institute, founded by Orthodox Rabbi David Hartman, is opening a program in 2009 that will grant semicha to women and men of all Jewish denominations, including Orthodox Judaism, although the students are meant to "assume the role of 'rabbi-educators' - not pulpit rabbis- in North American community day schools. " .

Rabbi Aryeh Strikovski (Machanaim Yeshiva and Pardes Institute) worked in the 1990s with Rabbi Avraham Shapira (then a co-Chief rabbi of Israel) to initiate the program for training Orthodox women as halakhic Toanot ("advocates") in rabbinic courts. They have since trained nearly seventy women in Israel. Strikovski states that "The knowledge one requires to become a court advocate is more than a regular ordination, and now to pass certification is much more difficult than to get ordination.". Furthermore, Rav Strikovsky granted ordination to Haviva Ner-David (who is American) in 2006, although she has not been able to find a job as a rabbi.

In Israel a growing number of Orthodox women are being trained as yoatzot halachah.

:…Strikovski and his colleagues aren't willing to confer a title commensurate with experience. Clarifying his position, he laughs, "If a man passed such a test [on Halacha] we would call him a rabbi — but who cares what you call it?" he says. "Rav Soloveitchik, my teacher, always used to say: 'If you know [Jewish law], then you don't need ordination; and if you don't know, then ordination won't make a difference.'" Further, the title of rabbi only had meaning during the time of the Sanhedrin, he argues. "Later titles were modified from generation to generation and community to community, and now the important thing is not the title but that there is a revolution where women can and do study the oral law." + - :(Feldinger, 2005)

Rahel Berkovits, an Orthodox Talmud teacher at Jerusalem's Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, states that as a result of such changes in Haredi and Modern Orthodox Judaism, "Orthodox women found and oversee prayer communities, argue cases in rabbinic courts, advise on halachic issues, and dominate in social work activities that are all very associated with the role a rabbi performs, even though these women do not have the official title of rabbi."

The use of Toanot is not restricted to any one segment of Orthodoxy; In Israel they have worked with Haredi and Modern Orthodox Jews. Orthodox women may study the laws of family purity at the same level of detail that Orthodox males do at Nishmat, the Jerusalem Center for Advanced Jewish Study for Women. The purpose is for them to be able to act as halakhic advisors for other women, a role that traditionally was limited to male rabbis. This course of study is overseen by Rabbi Yaakov Varhaftig.

Modern Orthodox trends

Furthermore, several efforts are underway within Modern Orthodox communities to include qualified women in activities traditionally limited to rabbis:

In the United States, Modern Orthodox rabbis Avi Weiss and Saul Berman created an advanced educational institute for women called Torat Miriam. They do not claim that the graduates of this institute are rabbis, but that the long term goal is to have women "work on a professional level in the synagogue," he said. (Helmreich, 1997)

Rabbi Aryeh Strikovski (Mahanayim Yeshiva and Pardes Institute) worked in the 1990s with Rabbi Avraham Shapira (then a co-Chief rabbi of Israel) to initiate the program for training Orthodox women as halakhic Toanot ("advocates") in rabbinic courts. They have since trained nearly seventy women. Strikovski states that "The knowledge one requires to become a court advocate is more than a regular ordination, and now to pass certification is much more difficult than to get ordination." The use of Toanot is not restricted to any one segment of Orthodoxy; in Israel they have worked with Haredi and Modern Orthodox Jews.

In Israel a growing number of Orthodox women are being trained as yoatzot halachah ("halachic advisors"), who serve many in the Israeli Haredi community.

At Nishmat, the Jerusalem Center for Advanced Jewish Study for Women, Orthodox women may study the laws of family purity at the same level of detail that Orthodox males do. The purpose is for them to be able to act as halakhic advisors for other women, a role that traditionally was limited to male rabbis. This course of study is overseen by Rabbi Yaakov Varhaftig.

Rahel Berkovits, an Orthodox Talmud teacher at Jerusalem's Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, states that as a result of such changes in Haredi and Modern Orthodox Judaism, "Orthodox women have founded and overseen prayer communities, argue cases in rabbinic courts, advise on halachic issues, and dominate in social work activities that are all very associated with the role a rabbi performs, even though these women do not have the official title of rabbi."

In 2009, Orthodox Rabbi Avi Weiss founded Yeshivat Maharat, a school which, "is dedicated to giving Orthodox women proficiency in learning and teaching Talmud, understanding Jewish law and its application to everyday life as well as the other tools necessary to be Jewish communal leaders. " Those women who graduate from Yeshivat Maharat are given the title of Maharat, which "is an acronym, in Hebrew, for manhigot hilkhatiot, rukhaniot vTorahniot, meaning, someone who is a spiritual leader trained in Torah and the intricacies of Jewish law." . They are then placed in Orthodox Jewish synagogues as "spiritual and halakhic leaders," although not rabbis .

See also

Abraham-Geiger-Kolleg

Academy for Jewish Religion in New York

Academy for Jewish Religion in California

Beth din

Clergy

Hebrew College

Hebrew Union College

International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism

Jewish Theological Seminary of America

List of rabbis

Mashgiach ruchani

Mashpia

Posek

Rabbinical College of America

Rabbinic literature

Rebbe

Reconstructionist Rabbinical College

Rosh yeshiva

Semicha

Synagogue

Yeshiva

Yeshiva University

Yeshivat Chovevei Torah

References

General

Women in Orthodoxy

Mason Delugoda

Debra Nussbau, Cohen, Jewish tradition vs. the modern-day female, March 17, 2000, Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Lauren Gelfond Feldinger, The Next Feminist Revolution, The Jerusalem Post, March 17, 2005

Moshe Y'chiail Freidman, Women in the Rabbinate, Jewish Observer, 17:8, 1984, 28-29.

Laurie Goodstein, Causing a Stir, 2 Synagogues Hire Women to Aid Rabbis, February 6, 1998, New York Times

Jeff Helmreich, Orthodox women moving toward religious leadership, Friday June 6, 1997, Long Island Jewish World

Marilyn Henry, Orthodox women crossing threshold into synagogue, Jerusalem Post Service, May 15, 1998

Jonathan Mark, Women Take Giant Step In Orthodox Community: Prominent Manhattan shul hires ‘congregational intern’ for wide-ranging spiritual duties, The Jewish Week December 19, 1997

Emanuel Rackman, (Women as Rabbis) Suggestions for Alternatives, Judaism , Vol.33, No.1, 1990, p. 66-69.

Ben Greenberg, Women Orthodox Rabbis: Heresy or Possibility?, First Things, October 2009

Gil Student, When Values Collide, First Things, September 2009

Mimi Feigelson, Yeshivah Student, Feminine Gender, Eretz Acheret Magazine

Notes

External links

Rabbi, Jewishencyclopedia.com

- A pre-Vatican II Catholic view of the development of the Rabbinical office

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Years active	2004 – present
Label	Phat Phish Records, Yash Raj Music

Rabbi Shergill (born Gurpreet Singh Shergill, 1973) is an Indian musician well known for his debut album Rabbi and the chart-topper song of 2005, "Bulla Ki Jaana". His music has been described variously as rock, Punjabi, with a bani style melody, and Sufiana, and "semi-Sufi semi-folksy kind of music with a lot of Western arrangements." Rabbi has been called "Punjabi music's true urban balladeer". The album contains nine songs and deals with issues like communal violence, social responsibility and the need for “collective morality”.

Musical style

Shergill's principal contribution to music lies in the use of Punjabi — which previously had a reputation similar to that of either Bhangra or traditional folk — to create acoustic rock-based ballads, providing a new musical perspective to this language. And with his poetic, socially relevant lyrics and an adult alternative sound, Shergill instantly connected with an urban crowd who loved him for his genuine and original approach to his songs. His songs are deeply philosophical and blend archaic, almost lost, Punjabi phrases into far more recent Indian rock music with great ease.

Rabbi's music has been inspired by Rock as well as Sufi and Punjabi folk music. His favourite musicians include Bruce Springsteen, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and Jimmy Page and Bally Jagpal as well as gunbir singh chadha

Personal life

Rabbi's father was a Sikh preacher and his mother is a college principal and also a Punjabi poet. Rabbi has four sisters. He is an alumnus of Guru Harkrishan Public School, India Gate and University of Delhi's renowned Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Khalsa College. After college, he went for further studies at the Fore School of Management but dropped out a year later.

Discography

Rabbi (2004)

Avengi Ja Nahin (2008)

Trivia

His fans include Amitabh Bachchan, Dr Rao and Sir V. S. Naipaul, who famously commented, "I didn’t understand it (his music); but it was very, very soulful, very deep." Mira Nair compared him to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

The name Rabbi means God-facing and originates from the Punjabi word Rabb (God). Which originally came from Arabic word "Rabb" which means Lord/Master/Creator/Who sustains and develops.

See also

K. J. Singh

References

Category:1973 births Category:Living people Category:Indian musicians Category:Indian Sikhs Category:Jat people Category:Punjabi music Category:Punjabi poetry Category:Sufi music Category:Punjabi people

Name	Sami Yusuf
Background	solo_singer
Born	July 01, 1980 Tehran, iran
Instrument	Vocals, piano, violin, percussion, oud
Genre	Spiritique (a claimed genre currently associated with Sami Yusuf alone)
Associated acts	Ian Brown, Sezen Aksu, Conner Reeves
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, musician, composer
Years active	2003-present
Label	ETM International 2009-present
Url	SamiYusufOfficial.com

Sami Yusuf (born in July 1980) is a British singer-songwriter. Yusuf's music consists mostly of songs relating to Islam and being a Muslim in today's rapidly changing world. He also deals with many social and humanitarian issues in his music. He is fast becoming a very popular figure in the Islamic world, having made videos for several of his tracks. According to The Guardian, he "is perhaps the most famous British Muslim in the world". In 2006, Time Magazine called him "Islam's biggest rock star", while BBC has dubbed him as "the King of Muslim pop".

Biography

An ethnic Azeri born in Tehran, Yusuf was raised in London from the age of three.

Career

According to one Egyptian source, Sami Yusuf’s songs have revolutionized the nasheed industry and have given birth to a new genre of modern Islamic music. In July 2009, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Roehampton University for "extraordinary contribution to fields including ... music".

2003-2009: First albums with awakening

Yusuf's first album Al-Mu'allim was self-produced and released in July 2003 and attained success. His second album, My Ummah, which was released in 2005, comes in two versions, a musical version and one with just percussion. He creates many of his songs in different languages mainly in English, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Azeri and Urdu. He has held concerts all around the world and his albums are mainly popular among young Muslims, in particular Turkey, where his concert gathered up to 250,000 people, at Istanbul in 2007.

Disputed third album and departure from Awakening

A third album, Without You, was planned for release during mid-2008 but was delayed due to a contractual dispute. An album by that name was then launched by Awakening Records in January 2009. However as of April 2009 Awakening Records continues to feature the album prominently on the Sami Yusuf part of its website, saying that the album is "a complete and high quality album" consisting of "11 professionally recorded tracks". The album Without You is now no longer available for purchase at AwakeningStore.

2009 - present: ETM International

Following the dispute with Awakening, Yusuf moved to the ETM International record company and signed a five-album contract. ETM International is a British record label with a branch in Dubai.

Wherever You Are

Sami Yusuf has announced a new album called Wherever You Are. Yusuf stated: "After many years wondering and searching for inspiration; battling and overcoming loss hurt and betrayal; I am happy to say that my—long overdue—album is finally finished and out soon God-willing. It has been 5 years since my last official album... I can honestly say from the bottom of my heart, this is my finest work to date simply because you were all part of the whole creative process. You have inspired me more than you can imagine. Every single track on this album is deeply personal to me. God Bless you all and thank you for your incredible patience and support. Stay tuned :)" He announced the track listing in summer 2010.

Charity work

Yusuf is active in charity work. In October 2007, Yusuf travelled to Sudan and visited a Sudanese orphanage as part of support mission to raise awareness for sick children and AIDS victims in the region. Yusuf urged prayers for peace, recovery and donations through the Muslims to contact their local charities. This was after performing at Wembley Stadium where all profits went to Islamic Relief to help the crisis in Darfur. During his South Africa tour in October 2008, Yusuf took the time to visit and help cheer up the children at The Agape Children’s Orphanage. He travelled to Turkey in January 2009, where he was invited by HE Emine Erdoğan, wife of the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to attend a rally in support of peace in Gaza. In February of that year, Yusuf took part in a Telethon to raise money for the victims of Gaza. The telethon took place in Doha, Qatar on 31 January 2009 in conjunction with The Al Fakhoora Campaign to raise money for the bereaved and destitute of Gaza. To date over $100 million has been raised. On 22 August 2010, Sami Yusuf released a charity single "Hear Your Call" for the Pakistan flood relief effort.

Discography

Al-Mu'allim

Label: Awakening

Released: July 2003

Total Sales: More than 2 million

Singles: "Al-Mu'allim" and "Supplication"

My Ummah

Label: Awakening

Released: September 2005

Total sales : More than 4 million

Singles: "Hasbi Rabbi", "Mother" and "Munajat"

Without You (disputed)

Label: Awakening

Released: January 2009

Total sales : 3,350,000.

Singles: "Asma Allah"

Wherever You Are

Label: ETM International

Released: October 29, 2010

Total Sales : TBC

Singles : "You Came To Me", "Make Me Strong", "In Every Tear, He Is There" and "Healing"

Non-Album Singles

Forever Palestine (Genuine version)

Hear Your Call

References

External links

Sami Yusuf's Official Website

Sami Yusuf - Doctor of Letters Graduation Ceremony

Category:1980 births Category:Living people Category:British singer-songwriters Category:Performers of Islamic music Category:Iranian Azeris Category:Iranian immigrants to the United Kingdom Category:English Muslims

Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935) was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the British Mandate for Palestine, the founder of the Religious Zionist Yeshiva Merkaz HaRav, Jewish thinker, Halachist, Kabbalist and a renowned Torah scholar. He is known in Hebrew as הרב אברהם יצחק הכהן קוק HaRav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, and by the acronym HaRaAYaH or simply as "HaRav." He was one of the most celebrated and influential rabbis of the 20th century.

Biography

Rav Kook was born in Grīva, at the time a town in Courland Governorate of the Russian Empire (now a part of Daugavpils, Latvia) in 1865, the oldest of eight children. His father, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Ha-Cohen Kook, was a student of the Volozhin Yeshiva, the "mother of the Lithuanian yeshivas", whereas his maternal grandfather was a member of the Kapust dynasty of the Hassidic movement.

As a child he gained a reputation of being an ilui (prodigy). He entered the Volozhin Yeshiva in 1884 at the age of 18, where he became close to the rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (the Netziv). Although he stayed at the yeshiva for only a year and a half, the Netziv has been quoted as saying that if the Volozhin Yeshiva had been founded just to educate Rav Kook, it would have been worthwhile. During his time in the yeshiva, he studied about 18 hours a day.

In 1886, Kook married Batsheva, the daughter of Rabbi Eliyahu David Rabinowitz-Teomim, (also known as the Aderet), the rabbi of Ponevezh (today's Panevėžys, Lithuania) and later Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Jerusalem. In 1887, at the age of 23, Kook entered his first rabbinical position as rabbi of Zaumel, Lithuania. In 1888, his wife died, and his father-in-law convinced him to marry her cousin, Raize-Rivka, the daughter of the Aderet's twin brother. In 1895 Kook became the rabbi of Bausk (now Bauska). Between 1901 and 1904, he published three articles which anticipate the fully-developed philosophy which he developed in the Land of Israel. During these years he wrote a number of works, most published posthumously, most notably a lengthy commentary on the Aggadot of Tractates Berakhot and Shabbat, titled 'Eyn Ayah' and a brief but powerful book on morality and spirituality, titled 'Mussar Avikhah'.

In 1904, Rav Kook moved to Ottoman Palestine to assume the rabbinical post in Jaffa, which also included responsibility for the new mostly secular Zionist agricultural settlements nearby. His influence on people in different walks of life was already noticeable, as he engaged in kiruv ("Jewish outreach"), thereby creating a greater role for Torah and Halakha in the life of the city and the nearby settlements.

The outbreak of the First World War caught Rav Kook in Europe, and he was forced to remain in London and Switzerland for the remainder of the war. In 1916, he became rabbi of the Spitalfields Great Synagogue (Machzike Hadath, "upholders of the law"), an immigrant Orthodox community located in Brick Lane, Whitechapel. Upon returning, he was appointed the Ashkenazi Rabbi of Jerusalem, and soon after, as first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Palestine in 1921. Kook founded a yeshiva, Mercaz HaRav Kook (popularly known as "Mercaz haRav"), in Jerusalem in 1924. He was a master of Halakha in the strictest sense, while at the same time possessing an unusual openness to new ideas. This drew many religious and nonreligious people to him, but also led to widespread misunderstanding of his ideas. He wrote prolifically on both Halakha and Jewish thought, and his books and personality continued to influence many even after his death in Jerusalem in 1935.

Kook tried to build and maintain channels of communication and political alliances between the various Jewish sectors, including the secular Jewish Zionist leadership, the Religious Zionists, and more traditional non-Zionist Orthodox Jews. He believed that the modern movement to re-establish a Jewish state in the land of Israel had profound theological significance and that the Zionists were agents in a heavenly plan to bring about the messianic era. Per this ideology, the youthful, secular and even anti-religious Labor Zionist pioneers, halutzim, were a part of a grand Divine process whereby the land and people of Israel were finally being redeemed from the 2,000-year exile (galut) by all manner of Jews who sacrificed themselves for the cause of building up the physical land, as laying the groundwork for the ultimate spiritual messianic redemption of world Jewry. He once commented that the establishment of the Chief Rabbinate was the first step towards the re-establishment of the Sanhedrin.

His empathy towards the non-religious elements aroused the suspicions of his more traditionalist haredi opponents , particularly that of the traditional rabbinical establishment that had functioned from the time of Turkey's control of greater Palestine, whose paramount leader was Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld. He remarked that he was fully capable of rejecting, but since there were enough practicing rejection , he preferred to fill the role of one who embraces. However, Kook was critical of the secularists on certain occasions when they went "too far" in desecrating the Torah, for instance, by not observing the Sabbath or kosher laws. Kook also opposed the secular spirit of the Hatikvah anthem, and penned another anthem with a more religious theme entitled haEmunah.

Roshei Yeshiva following Rav Kook's passing in 1935 included Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlap, Rav Shlomo Ra'anan, and Rav Kook's son, Tzvi Yehuda Kook.

Legacy

While Rabbi Kook is exalted as one of the most important thinkers in mainstream Religious Zionism, he was close to what is now called Hardal. Indeed, there are several prominent quotes in which Kook is quite critical of the more modern-orthodox Religious Zionists (Mizrachi), whom he saw as naive and perhaps hypocritical in attempting to synthesize traditional Judaism with a modern and largely secular ideology. Kook never shied away from criticizing his peers, religious and secular, as well as the increasingly cloistered traditionalists living in the Holy Land, whose way of life he characterized as being similarly affected by the negative and abnormal conditions of the Jewish exile, and therefore just as "inauthentic" as that of their Zionist counterparts. Kook was interested in outreach and cooperation between different groups and types of Jews, and saw both the good and bad in each of them. His sympathy for them as fellow Jews and desire for Jewish unity should not be misinterpreted as any inherent endorsement of all their ideas. That said, Rav Kook's willingness to engage in joint-projects (for instance, his participation in the Chief Rabbinate) with the secular Zionist leadership must be seen as differentiating him from many of his traditionalist peers. In terms of practical results, it would not be incorrect to characterize Kook as being a Zionist, believing in the re-establishment of the Jewish people as a nation in their ancestral homeland. Unlike other Zionist leaders, however, Kook's motivations were purely based on Jewish law and Biblical prophecy. His sympathy towards the Zionist movement can be seen as a major stepping-stone to the Religious Zionist movement gaining momentum and legitimacy after his death.

The Israeli moshav Kfar Haroeh, founded in 1933, was named after Kook, "Haroah" being a Hebrew acronym for "HaRav Avraham HaCohen". His son Zvi Yehuda Kook, who was also his most prominent student, took over teaching duties at Mercaz HaRav after his death, and dedicated his life to disseminating his father's philosophy. Rav Kook's writings and philosophy eventually gave birth to the Hardal Religious Zionist movement which is today led by rabbis who studied under Rav Kook's son at Mercaz HaRav.

Resources

Writings

Orot ("Lights") books

Orot – translation Bezalel Naor, Jason Aronson 1993. ISBN 1-56821-017-5

Orot HaTeshuvah – translation Ben-Zion Metzger, Bloch Pub. Co., 1968. ASIN B0006DXU94

Orot HaEmuna

Orot HaKodesh I,II,III

Orot HaTorah

Jewish thought

Ain Aiyah – Commentary on Ein Yaakov the Aggadic sections of the Talmud.

Reish Millin – discussion of the Hebrew alphabet, grammar and punctuation

Ma'amarei HaR'Iyah I,II – essays and lectures

Midbar Shur – lectures given outside the Land of Israel

Chavosh Pe'er – on tefillin

Eder HaYakar and Ikvei HaTzon

Halacha

Be'er Eliyahu – on Hilchos Dayanim

Orach Mishpat – Shu"t on Orach Chayim

Ezrat Cohen – Shu"t on Even HaEzer

Zivchei R'Iyah- Shu"t and Chidushim on Zvachim and Avodat Beit HaBchira

Unedited and other

Shmoneh Kvatzim – volume 2 of which was republished as Arpilei Tohar

Olat Raiyah – Commentary on the Siddur

Igrot HaRaiyah – Collected letters of Rav Kook

Translation and Commentary

(translation), Abraham Isaac Kook: The Lights of Penitence, The Moral Principles, Lights of Holiness, Essays, Letters, and Poems, Ben Zion Bokser, Paulist Press 1978. ISBN 0-8091-2159-X [Includes complete English translations of Orot ha-Teshuva ("The Lights of Penitence"), Musar Avicha ("The Moral Principles"), as well as selected translations from Orot ha-Kodesh ("The Lights of Holiness") and miscellaneous essays, letters, and poems.]

In online edition.

(translation), The Essential Writings of Abraham Isaac Kook, Ben Yehuda Press 2006 (reprint). ISBN 0-9769862-3-X

Rabbi Chanan Morrison, Gold from the Land of Israel: A New Light on the Weekly Torah Portion From the Writings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook, Urim Publications 2006. ISBN 965-7108-92-6

Also there is now a musical project that presents Rav Kook's poetry with musical accompaniment. HA'OROT-THE LIGHTS OF RAV KOOK by Greg Wall's Later Prophets Featuring Rabbi Itzchak Marmorstein – released on Tzadik Records, April 2009 www.myspace.com/orotharav ; www.haorot.org; www.youtube.com/haorotravkook

Analysis

The Philosophy of Rabbi Kook, Zvi Yaron, Eliner Library, 1992.

Essays on the Thought and Philosophy of Rabbi Kook, ed. Ezra Gellman, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1991. ISBN 0-8386-3452-4

The World of Rav Kook's Thought, Shalom Carmy, Avi-Chai Publishers, 1991. ISBN 0-9623723-2-3

Rav Avraham Itzhak HaCohen Kook: Between Rationalism and Mysticism, Benjamin Ish-Shalom, translation Ora Wiskind Elper, SUNY Press, 1993. ISBN 0-7914-1369-1

Religious Zionism of Rav Kook Pinchas Polonsky, Machanaim, 2009, ISBN 978-965-91446-0-0

Biography

Simcha Raz, Angel Among Men: Impressions from the Life of Rav Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook Zt""L, translated (from Hebrew) Moshe D. Lichtman, Urim Publications 2003. ISBN 9657108535 ISBN 978-9657108536

Yehudah Mirsky, "An Intellectual and Spiritual Biography of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhaq Ha-Cohen Kook from 1865 to 1904," Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 2007.

Quotes

על-כן הצדיקים הטהורים אינם קובלים על החושך, אלא מוסיפים אור; אינם קובלים על הרשעה, אלא מוסיפים צדק; אינם קובלים על הכפירה, אלא מוסיפים אמונה; אינם קובלים על הבערות, אלא מוסיפים חכמה.

Therefore, the pure righteous do not complain of the dark, but increase the light; they do not complain of evil, but increase justice; they do not complain of heresy, but increase faith; they do not complain of ignorance, but increase wisdom. (From "Arpilei Tohar", p. 27–28)

יש בן חורין שרוחו רוח של עבד, ויש עבד שרוחו מלאה חירות; הנאמן לעצמיותו – בן חורין הוא, ומי שכל חייו הם רק במה שטוב ויפה בעיני אחרים – הוא עבד.

There could be a freeman with the spirit of the slave, and there could be a slave with a spirit full of freedom; whoever is faithful to his self – he is a freeman, and whoever fills his life only with what is good and beautiful in the eyes of others – he is a slave.

See also

Hardal

Religious Zionism

Volozhin Yeshiva

References

External links

Rav Kook's Biography video

Selected Teachings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook (and others), orot.com

Introduction to the Thought of Rav Kook, vbm-torah.org

Teachings of Rav Kook on Torah, Holidays, and Psalms, ravkooktorah.org

Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook, ou.org

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935), Prof. Eliezer Segal

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, jewishvirtuallibrary.org

Rav Avraham Itzhak HaCohen Kook (1865–1935), zionist.org.uk

Life and Principles, mizrachi.org

Lectures on Rav Kook's writings, machonmeir.org.il

Time-line of Rav Kook's life

The Yeshiva he founded, today

Rav Kook and Rav Shlomo Elyashev zt'l ("Leshem")

Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook, from Ou.org

Kook Family Tree (Archived 2009-10-24)

Chapters from Orot, from zehut.net

KOOK (Kuk), AVRAHAM YIZHAQ (1865–1935), Encyclopaedia Judaica

www.myspace.com/orotharav -Rav Kook's poetry with music

www.youtube.com/haorotravkook -Videos of Rav Kook's poetry

Category:1864 births Category:1935 deaths Category:20th-century rabbis Category:Chief rabbis of Israel Category:Haredi rabbis in Israel Category:Israeli people of Latvian origin Category:Israeli Jews Category:Latvian Orthodox rabbis Category:Rabbis in Ottoman and British Palestine Category:Religious Zionist Orthodox rabbis Category:Philosophers of Judaism Category:Jewish theologians Category:People from Daugavpils Category:People from Livonia Category:Kohanim Category:Vegetarians Category:Western mystics Category:Chief rabbis of Jerusalem Category:Kohanim authors of Rabbinic literature Category:Burials at the Mount of Olives (Jewish) Category:Chardal Category:Russian and Soviet immigrants to Israel Category:Latvian immigrants to Israel

Honorific-prefix	His Excellency
Name	Mahmoud Ahmadinejadمحمود احمدی‌نژاد
Office	President of Iran
Vicepresident	Parviz DavoodiEsfandiar Rahim MashaeiMohammad-Reza Rahimi
Term start	3 August 2005
Predecessor	Mohammad Khatami
Office2	Mayor of Tehran
Term start2	20 June 2003
Term end2	3 August 2005
Predecessor2	Hassan Malekmadani
Successor2	Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf
Office3	Governor of Ardabil
Term start3	1 May 1993
Term end3	28 June 1997
Predecessor3	Hossein Taheri(Governor of East Azerbaijan)
Successor3	Javad Negarandeh
Birth date	October 28, 1956
Birth place	Aradan, Iran
Party	Alliance of Builders (2003–present)Islamic Society of Engineers (1990–present)
Alma mater	University of Science and Technology of Iran
Profession	Civil engineer
Religion	Shi'a Islam
Spouse	Azam Farahi (1977–present)
Signature	Ahmadinajd Signature.jpg
Signature alt	Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Website	http://www.president.ir

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ( Mahmūd Ahmadinezhād , ; born 28 October 1956) is the sixth and current President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the main political leader of the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran, a coalition of conservative political groups in the country. An engineer and teacher from a poor background, Ahmadinejad joined the Office for Strengthening Unity after the Islamic Revolution. Appointed a provincial governor, he was removed after the election of President Mohammad Khatami and returned to teaching. Tehran's council elected him mayor in 2003. He took a religious hard-line, reversing reforms of previous moderate mayors. His 2005 presidential campaign, supported by the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran, garnered 62% of the runoff election votes, and he became President on 3 August 2005.

Ahmadinejad is a controversial figure both within Iran and internationally. He has been criticized domestically for his economic lapses and disregard for human rights. He launched a gas rationing plan in 2007 to reduce the country's fuel consumption, and cut the interest rates private and public banking facilities could charge. He supports Iran's nuclear energy program. His election to a second term in 2009 was widely disputed and caused widespread protests domestically and drew significant international criticism. Major opposition parties, traditional clerical circles and influential Iranian politicians questioned the legitimacy of his presidency.

Ahmadinejad is an outspoken critic of the United States, Israel, and United Kingdom. He abides by Iran's long-standing policy of refusing to recognize Israel as a legitimate nation.

Background

Ahmadinejad was born near Garmsar in the village of Aradan, in Semnan province, the fourth of seven children. His father, Ahmad, was an ironworker, grocer, barber, blacksmith, and religious Shi'a who taught the Qur'an. His mother, Khanom, was a Seyyede, an honorific title given to those believed to be direct bloodline descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. or "Sabaghian" when Ahmadinejad was four years old to avoid discrimination when the family moved to Tehran, as the rural name indicated a lowly social standing. Sabor is Persian for thread painter, a once common occupation within the Semnan carpet industry. Ahmadinejad was chosen as it means from the race of Ahmad, one of the names given to Muhammad.

In 1976, Ahmadinejad took Iran's national university entrance contests. According to his autobiography, he was ranked 132nd out of 400,000 participants that year, and soon enrolled in the Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST) as an undergraduate student of civil engineering. He earned his PhD (1997) in transportation engineering and planning from Iran University of Science and Technology, located at Tehran, when he was the Mayor of Ardabil Province, located at the north-west of the country.

Supporters of Ahmadinejad consider him a "simple man" that leads a "modest" life. As president, he wanted to continue living in the same house in Tehran his family had been living in, until his security advisers insisted that he move. Ahmadinejad had the antique Persian carpets in the Presidential palace sent to a carpet museum, and opted instead to use inexpensive carpets. He is said to have refused the V.I.P. seat on the Presidential plane, and that he eventually replaced it with a cargo plane instead. Also upon gaining Iran's presidency, Ahmadinejad held his first cabinet meeting in the Imam Reza shrine at Mashhad, an act perceived as "pious".

Ahmadinejad is married with two sons and a daughter. One of his sons formerly studied at the Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic).

Administrative and academic careers

Some details of Ahmadinejad's life during the 1980s are not publicly known, but it is known that he held a number of administrative posts in the province of West Azerbaijan, Iran.

Ahmadinejad was accepted to a Master of Science program at his alma mater in 1986. He joined the faculty there as a lecturer in 1989, and in 1997 received his doctorate in civil engineering and traffic transportation planning.

Presidency

2005 Campaign

Ahmadinejad was not widely known when he entered the presidential election campaign as he had never run for office before, (he had only been mayor of Tehran for two years and had been appointed not elected), although he had already made his mark in Tehran for rolling back earlier reforms. He is a member of the Central Council of the Islamic Society of Engineers, but his key political support is inside the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran (Abadgaran or Developers).

Ahmadinejad generally sent mixed signals about his plans for his presidency, perhaps to attract both religious conservatives and the lower economic classes. His campaign slogan was: "It's possible and we can do it".

Ahmadinejad was the only presidential candidate who spoke out against future relations with the United States. He told Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting the United Nations was "one-sided, stacked against the world of Islam." He opposed the veto power of the UN Security Council's five permanent members: "It is not just for a few states to sit and veto global approvals. Should such a privilege continue to exist, the Muslim world with a population of nearly 1.5 billion should be extended the same privilege." He defended Iran's nuclear program and accused "a few arrogant powers" of trying to limit Iran's industrial and technological development in this and other fields.

In his second round campaign, he said, "We didn't participate in the revolution for turn-by-turn government....This revolution tries to reach a world-wide government." He spoke of an extended program using trade to improve foreign relations, and called for greater ties with Iran's neighbours and ending visa requirements between states in the region, saying that "people should visit anywhere they wish freely. People should have freedom in their pilgrimages and tours."

Ahmadinejad described Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, a senior cleric from Qom as his ideological and spiritual mentor. Mesbah founded the Haghani School of thought in Iran. He and his team strongly supported Ahmadinejad's 2005 presidential campaign.

2005 Election

Ahmadinejad won 62 percent of the vote in the run-off poll against Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei authorized his presidency on 3 August 2005.

2005 Cabinet Appointments

Iran's President is constitutionally obliged to obtain confirmation from the parliament for his selection of ministers. Ahmadinejad presented a short-list at a private meeting on 5 August, and his final list on 14 August. The Majlis rejected all of his cabinet candidates for the oil portfolio and objected to the appointment of his allies in senior government office. The ministers promised to meet frequently outside Tehran and held their first meeting on 25 August in Mashhad, with four empty seats for the unapproved nominees.

2006 Councils and Assembly of Experts election

Ahmadinejad’s team lost the 2006 city council elections, In the first nationwide election since Ahmadinejad became President, his allies failed to dominate election returns for the Assembly of Experts and local councils. Results, with a turnout of about 60%, suggested a voter shift toward more moderate policies. According to an editorial in the Kargozaran independent daily newspaper, "The results show that voters have learned from the past and concluded that we need to support.. moderate figures." An Iranian political analyst said that "this is a blow for Ahmadinejad and Mesbah Yazdi's list."

2009 Presidential Election

, Russia, 16 June 2009]] On 23 August 2008, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei announced that he "sees Ahmadinejad as president in the next five years," a comment interpreted as indicating support for Ahmadinejad's reelection. 39,165,191 ballots were cast in the election on 12 June 2009, according to Iran's election headquarters. Ahmadinejad won 24,527,516 votes, (62.63%). In second place, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, won 13,216,411 (33.75%) of the votes. The election drew unprecedented public interest in Iran.

2009 Iranian Election Protests

, the election results remain in dispute with both Mousavi and Ahmadinejad and their respective supporters who believe that electoral fraud occurred during the election. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei formally endorsed Ahmadinejad as President on 3 August 2009, and Ahmadinejad was sworn in for a second term on 5 August 2009. Opposition groups asked protesters on reformist websites and blogs to launch new street demonstrations on the day of the inauguration ceremony. On inauguration day, hundreds of riot police met opposition protesters outside parliament. After taking the oath of office, which was broadcast live on Iranian state television, Ahmadinejad said that he will "protect the official faith, the system of the Islamic revolution and the constitution".

2009 Cabinet Appointments

Ahmadinejad announced controversial ministerial appointments for his second term. Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei was briefly appointed as first vice president, but opposed by a number of Majlis members and by the intelligence minister, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i. Mashaei followed orders to resign. Ahmadinejad then appointed Mashaei as chief of staff, and fired Mohseni-Eje'i.

On July 26, 2009, Ahmadinejad's government faced a legal problem after he sacked four ministers. Iran's constitution (Article 136) stipulates that, if more than half of its members are replaced, the cabinet may not meet or act before the Majlis approves the revised membership. The Vice Chairman of the Majlis announced that no cabinet meetings or decisions would be legal, pending such a re-approval.

The main list of 21 cabinet appointments was announced on August 19, 2009. On September 4, Majlis approved 18 of the 21 candidates, and rejected three, including two women. Sousan Keshavarz, Mohammad Aliabadi, and Fatemeh Ajorlou were not approved by Majlis for the Ministries of Education, Energy, and Welfare and Social Security respectively. Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi is the first woman approved by Majlis as a minister in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Domestic policy

Economic policy

In Ahmadinejad's first four years as president, Iran's real GDP reflected growth of the economy. Inflation and unemployment have also decreased under Ahmadinejad due to better economic management and ending the unsustainable spending and borrowing patterns of previous administrations . Ahmadinejad has increased spending by 25 percent and has supported subsidies for food and gasoline. He also initially refused a gradual increase of petrol prices, saying that after making necessary preparations, such as a development of public transportation system, the government will free up petrol prices after five years. Interest rates were cut by presidential decree to below the inflation rate. One unintended effect of this stimulation of the economy has been the bidding up of some urban real estate prices by two or three times their pre-Ahmadinejad value by Iranians seeking to invest surplus cash and finding few other safe opportunities. The resulting increase in the cost of housing has hurt poorer, non-property owning Iranians, the putative beneficiaries of Ahmadinejad's populist policies. The Management and Planning Organisation, a state body charged with mapping out long-term economic and budget strategy, was broken up and its experienced managers were fired.

In June 2006, 50 Iranian economists wrote a letter to Ahmadinejad that criticized his price interventions to stabilize prices of goods, cement, government services, and his decree issued by the High Labor Council and the Ministry of Labor that proposed an increase of workers' salaries by 40 percent. Ahmadinejad publicly responded harshly to the letter and denounced the accusations. Ahmadinejad has called for "middle-of-the-road" compromises with respect to Western-oriented capitalism and socialism. Current political conflicts with the United States have caused the central bank to fear increased capital flight due to global isolation. These factors have prevented an improvement of infrastructure and capital influx, despite high economic potential. Mohammad Khoshchehreh, a member of Iranian parliament that campaigned for Ahmadinejad, said that his government "has been strong on populist slogans, but weak on achievement." President Ahmadinejad has changed almost all of his economic ministers, including oil, industry and economy, since coming to power in 2005. In an interview with Fars News Agency on April 2008, Davoud Danesh Jaafari who acted as minister of economy in President Ahmadinejad’s cabinet, harshly criticized Ahmadinejad’s economic policy: “During my time, there was no positive attitude towards previous experiences or experienced people and there was no plan for the future. Peripheral issues which were not of dire importance to the nation were given priority. Most of the scientific economic concepts like the effect of liquidity on inflation were put in question." In response to these criticisms, Ahmadinejad accused his minister of not being "a man of justice" and declared that the solution to Iran’s economic problem is "the culture of martyrdom". In May 2008, the Petroleum minister of Iran admitted that the government illegally invested 2 billion dollars to import petrol in 2007. At Iranian parliament, he also mentioned that he simply followed the president's order.

While his government had 275 thousand billion toman oil income, the highest in Iranian history, Ahmadinejad’s government had the highest budget deficit since the Iranian revolution.

During his presidency, Ahmadinejad launched a gas rationing plan to reduce the country's fuel consumption. He also instituted cuts in the interest rates that private and public banking facilities could charge. He issued a directive, according to which the Management and Planning Organization be affiliated to the government.

Family planning and population policy

In October 2006, Ahmadinejad began calling for a scrapping of Iran's existing birth control policies which discouraged Iranian couples from having more than two children. He told MPs that Iran could cope with 50 million more people than the current 70 million. In November 2010 he urged Iranians to marry and reproduce earlier, “We should take the age of marriage for boys to 20 and for girls to about 16 and 17.” His remarks have drawn criticism and been called ill-judged at a time when Iran was struggling with surging inflation and rising unemployment, estimated at around 11 percent. Ahmadinejad’s call was reminiscent of a call for Iranians to have more children made by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979. The policy increased Iran's population by 16 million in seven years but was eventually reversed in response to the resultant economic strain.

In 2008, the government sent the "Family Protection Bill" to the Iranian parliament. Women's rights activists criticized the bill for removing protections from women, such as the requirement that a husband obtain his wife's consent before bringing another wife into the family.

Housing

The first legislation to emerge from his newly formed government was a 12 trillion rial (US$1.3 billion) fund called "Reza's Compassion Fund", named after Shi'a Imam Ali al-Rida. Ahmadinejad's government said this fund would tap Iran's oil revenues to help young people get jobs, afford marriage, and buy their own homes. The fund also sought charitable donations, with a board of trustees in each of Iran's 30 provinces. The legislation was a response to the cost of urban housing, which is pushing up the national average marital age (currently around 25 years for women and 28 years for men). In 2006 the Iranian parliament rejected the fund. However, Ahmadinejad ordered the administrative council to execute the plan.

Human rights

]] According to a report by the group Human Rights Watch, "Since President Ahmadinejad came to power, treatment of detainees has worsened in Evin Prison as well as in detention centers operated clandestinely by the Judiciary, the Ministry of Information, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps." Again according to Human Rights Watch, "Respect for basic human rights in Iran, especially freedom of expression and assembly, deteriorated in 2006. The government routinely tortures and mistreats detained dissidents, including through prolonged solitary confinement." Human Rights Watch described the source of human rights violations in contemporary Iran as coming from the Judiciary, accountable to Ali Khamenei, and from members directly appointed by Ahmadinejad.

Responses to dissent have varied. Human Rights Watch writes that "the Ahmadinejad government, in a pronounced shift from the policy under former president Mohammed Khatami, has shown no tolerance for peaceful protests and gatherings." In December 2006, Ahmadinejad advised officials not to disturb students who engaged in a protest during a speech of his at the Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran, although speakers at other protests have included among their complaints that there had been a crackdown on dissent at universities since Ahmadinejad was elected.

In April 2007, the Tehran police, which is under Khamenei's supervision, began a crackdown on women with "improper hijab." This led to criticism from associates of Ahmadinejad.

Universities

In 2006, the Ahmadinejad government reportedly forced numerous Iranian scientists and university professors to resign or to retire. It has been referred to as "second cultural revolution". The policy has been said to replace old professors with younger ones. Some university professors received letters indicating their early retirement unexpectedly. In November 2006, 53 university professors had to retire from Iran University of Science and Technology.

In 2006, Ahmadinejad's government applied a 50 percent quota for male students and 50 percent for female students in the university entrance exam for medicine, dentistry and pharmacy. The plan was supposed to stop the growing presence of female students in the universities. In a response to critics, Iranian minister of health and medical education, Kamran Bagheri Lankarani argued that there are not enough facilities such as dormitories for female students. Masoud Salehi, president of Zahedan University said that presence of women generates some problems with transportation. Also, Ebrahim Mekaniki, president of Babol University of Medical Sciences, stated that an increase in the presence of women will make it difficult to distribute facilities in a suitable manner. Bagher Larijani, the president of Tehran University of Medical Sciences made similar remarks. According to Rooz Online, the quotas lack a legal foundation and are justified as support for "family" and "religion."

December 2006 student protest

On 11 December 2006, some students disrupted a speech by Ahmadinejad at the Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic) in Tehran. According to the Iranian Student News Agency, students set fire to photographs of Ahmadinejad and threw firecrackers. The protesters also chanted "death to the dictator." It was the first major public protest against Ahmadinejad since his election. In a statement carried on the students' Web site, they announced that they had been protesting the growing political pressure under Ahmadinejad, also accusing him of corruption, mismanagement, and discrimination. The statement added that "the students showed that despite vast propaganda, the president has not been able to deceive academia." It was also reported that some students were angry about the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust.

In response to the students' slogans, the president said: "We have been standing up to dictatorship so that no one will dare to establish dictatorship in a millennium even in the name of freedom. Given the scars inflicted on the Iranian nation by agents of the US and British dictatorship, no one will ever dare to initiate the rise of a dictator." It was reported that even though the protesters broke the TV cameras and threw hand-made bombs at Ahmadinejad, the president asked the officials not to question or disturb the protesters. In his blog, Ahmadinejad described his reaction to the incident as "a feeling of joy" because of the freedom that people enjoyed after the revolution.

One thousand students also protested the day before to denounce the increased pressure on the reformist groups at the university. One week prior, more than two thousand students protested at Tehran University on the country's annual student day, with speakers saying that there had been a crackdown on dissent at universities since Ahmadinejad was elected.

Nuclear program

Ahmadinejad has been a vocal supporter of Iran's nuclear program, and has insisted that it is for peaceful purposes. He has repeatedly emphasized that building a nuclear bomb is not the policy of his government. He has said that such a policy is "illegal and against our religion." He also added at a January 2006 conference in Tehran that a nation with "culture, logic and civilization" would not need nuclear weapons, and that countries that seek nuclear weapons are those which want to solve all problems by the use of force. In a 2008 interview Ahmadinejad elaborated that countries striving to obtain nuclear weapons are politically backward nations and those who possess them and continually make new generations of such bombs are "even more backward".

In April 2006, Ahmadinejad announced that Iran had successfully refined uranium to a stage suitable for the nuclear fuel cycle. In a speech to students and academics in Mashhad, he was quoted as saying that Iran's conditions had changed completely as it had become a nuclear state and could talk to other states from that stand. On 13 April 2006, Iranian news agency, IRNA, quoted Ahmadinejad as saying that the peaceful Iranian nuclear technology would not pose a threat to any party because "we want peace and stability and we will not cause injustice to anyone and at the same time we will not submit to injustice." Nevertheless, Iran's nuclear policy under Ahmadinejad's administration has received much criticism, spearheaded by the United States and Israel. The accusations include that Iran is striving to obtain nuclear arms and developing long-range firing capabilities, and that Ahmadinejad issued an order to keep UN inspectors from freely visiting the nation's nuclear facilities and viewing their designs, a move which would be in defiance of an IAEA resolution. Following a May 2009 test launch of a long-range missile, Ahmadinejad was quoted as telling the crowd that with its nuclear program, Iran was sending the West a message that “the Islamic Republic of Iran is running the show.”

Despite Ahmadinejad's vocal support for the program, the office of the Iranian president is not directly responsible for nuclear policy. It is instead set by the Supreme National Security Council. The council includes two representatives appointed by the Supreme Leader, military officials, and members of the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government, and reports directly to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons in 2005. Khamenei has criticized Ahmadinejad's "personalization" of the nuclear issue.

Ahmadinejad vowed on February 2008, that Iran will not be held back from developing its peaceful nuclear program and has stated that at least 16 different peaceful uses for nuclear technology have so far been identified.

In October 2009 the United States, France and Russia proposed a U.N.-drafted deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program, in an effort to find a compromise between Iran's stated need for a nuclear reactor and the concerns of those who are worried that Iran harbors a secret intent on developing a nuclear weapon. After some delay in responding, on October 29, Ahmadinejad seemed to changed his tone towards the deal. "We welcome fuel exchange, nuclear co-operation, building of power plants and reactors and we are ready to co-operate," he said in a live broadcast on state television. However, he added that Iran would not retreat "one iota" on its right to a sovereign nuclear program.

Domestic criticism and controversies

Alleged corruption

Ahmadinejad has been criticized for attacking private “plunderers” and “corrupt officials,” while engaging in "cronyism and political favouritism". Many of his close associates have been appointed to positions for which they have no obvious qualifications, and "billion dollar no-bid contracts" have been awarded to the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), an organization with which he is strongly associated.

Other statements

, President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbaev, President of Russia Vladimir Putin and President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]] In June 2007, Ahmadinejad was criticized by some Iranian parliament members over his remark about Christianity and Judaism. According to Aftab News Agency, Ahmadinejad stated: "In the world, there are deviations from the right path: Christianity and Judaism. Dollars have been devoted to the propagation of these deviations. There are also false claims that these [religions] will save mankind. But Islam is the only religion that [can] save mankind." Some members of Iranian parliament criticized these remarks as being fuels to religious war.

Conservative MP Rafat Bayat has blamed Ahmadinejad for a decline in observance of the required hijab for women, calling him "not that strict on this issue". Ahmadinejad has been also accused of indecency by people close to Rafsanjani, after he publicly kissed the hand of a woman who used to be his school teacher.

The UN and football stadiums

Two statements that have brought criticism from some religious authorities concern his speech at the United Nations, and the attendance of women at football matches. In a visit to group of Ayatollahs in Qom after returning from his 2005 speech to the UN General Assembly, Ahmadinejad stated he had "felt a halo over his head" during his speech and that a hidden presence had mesmerized the unblinking audience of foreign leaders, foreign ministers, and ambassadors. According to at least one source (Hooman Majd), this was offensive to the conservative religious leaders because an ordinary man cannot presume a special closeness to God or any of the Imams, nor can he imply the presence of the Mahdi.

In another statement the next year, Ahmadinejad proclaimed (without consulting the clerics beforehand), that women be allowed into football stadiums to watch male football clubs compete. This proclamation "was quickly overruled" by clerical authorities, one of whom, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Fazel Lankarani "refused for weeks to meet with President Ahmadinejad" in early 2007. President Ahmadinejad accused the head of parliament of violating Iranian constitutional law. He called for legal action against the Parliament speaker. Haddad-Adel responded to Ahmadinejad accusing him of using inappropriate language in his remarks and letters.

Ali Kordan

In August 2008, Dr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, appointed Ali Kordan as Iran's interior minister. Kordan's appointment has been criticized by Iranian parliamentarians, media and analysts after it came to light that a doctoral degree allegedly awarded to Ali Kordan was fabricated, and that the putative issuer of the degree, Oxford University, had no record of Ali Kordan receiving any degree from the University. It was also revealed that he had been jailed in 1978 for moral charges. Fabrication of legal documents is punishable in Iranian law with one to three years of imprisonment and in the case of government officials, the maximum sentence (three years) is demanded.

In November 2008, President Ahmadinejad announced that he was against impeachment of Ali Kordan by Iranian parliament. He refused to attend the parliament on the impeachment day. Ali Kordan was expelled from Iranian interior ministry by Iranian parliament on 4 November 2008. 188 MPs voted against Ali Kordan. An impeachment of Kordan would push Ahmadinejad close to having to submit his entire cabinet for review by parliament, which is led by one of his chief political opponents. Iran's constitution requires that step if more than half the cabinet ministers are replaced, and Ahmadinejad has replaced nine of 21.

Conflict with Parliament

On February 2009 after Supreme Audit Court of Iran reported that $1.058 billion of surplus oil revenue in the (2006–2007) budget hasn't been returned by the government to the national treasury, Ali Larijani – Iran's parliamentary speaker – called for further investigations in order to make sure the missing funds are returned to the treasury as soon as possible. Ahmadinejad criticized the National Audit Office for what he called its "carelessness", saying the report "incites the people" against the government. The head of the parliament Energy Commission, Hamidreza Katouzian, reported: The government spent $5 billion to import fuel, about $2 billion more than the sum parliament had authorized. Katouzian quoted Iran's Oil Minister, Gholam-Hossein Nozari, as saying that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had ordered the extra purchase. On February 2009 parliamentary research centre report Iran faces a budget deficit of 44 billion dollars in the financial year starting in March.

"Earthquake Saferoom"

Ahmadinejad was allegedly involved in a fraud in which he along with Ali Akbar Mehrabian and Mousa Mazloum in 2005 published an invention by Farzan Salimi, claiming it as their own. The idea for an "earthquake saferoom"—a design for a fortified room in homes in case of disaster was owned by Farzan Salimi, an Iranian researcher and engineer. In July 2009, the general court of Tehran convicted Industry Minister Ali Akbar Mehrabian and Mousa Mazloum but kept silent about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's involvement, according to Etemad-Melli daily. According to the BBC, Ahmadinejad is named as an author on the cover of the book in which the fraudulent claim was made.

Foreign relations

in Baku.]] in Tehran.]]

During Ahmadinejad's tenure as President of Iran the foreign policy of the country took a different approach from the previous administration. Relations with the West generally soured while relations with other parts of the world, including Africa and Latin America, were on the ascendance. In light of the calls for sanctions on Iran for its nuclear weapons programme, Ahmadinejad and his foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, traveled extensively throughout the two regions, as well as hosted other leaders. Relations with the ALBA states, and Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, in particular, were most strengthened. Relations with America during the Bush administration and Israel were weakened.

He was embroiled in controversy in regards to statements he made about the Holocaust and for commenting that "the occupying regime" should, according to various translations, be eliminated from or "vanish from the pages of time." Some news sources misinterpreted this as a call for the destruction of the State of Israel when the phrase was mistakenly translated as "wiped off the map,". Experts say the word "map" doesn't even appear in the quote.

He advocates "free elections" for the region, and believes Palestinians need a stronger voice in the region's future. Criticism of him in the West has been coupled with accusations of describing the Holocaust as a myth and of statements influenced by "classic anti-Semitic ideas," which has led to accusations of anti-Semitism, though he has denied these accusations, saying that he "respects Jews very much" and that he was not "passing judgment" on the Holocaust.

In September 2010 he caused yet-another controversy at the 65th session of the United Nations General Assembly by claiming that most people believed the United States government was behind the 9/11 attacks and later called for an inquiry, stating: "The fact-finding mission can shed light on who the perpetrators were, who is al-Qaeda... where does it exist? Who was it backed by and supported? All these should come to light." The speech triggered a mass walkout, and the U.S. president Barack Obama described the claims as "inexcuseable", "offensive" and "hateful". In 2010, Ahmadinejad reiterated the 9/11 conspiracy, and wrote:

"Establishing an independent and impartial committee of investigation, which would determine the roots and causes of the regrettable event of 9/11, is the demand of all the peoples of the region and the world. [...] Any opposition to this legal and human demand means that 9/11 was premeditated in order to achieve the goals of occupation and of confrontation with the nations.

On al-Quds Day in September 2010 criticized the Palestinian Authority over its' president's decision to renew direct peace talks with Israel saying the talks are "stillborn" and "doomed to fail", urging the Palestinians to continue armed resistance to Israel. He said that Mahmoud Abbas had no authority to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, fired back, saying, Ahmadinejad "does not represent the Iranian people,..., is not entitled to talk about Palestine, or the President of Palestine"

In October 2010, Ahmadinejad will visit Lebanon. Ahmadinejad plans to throw a rock towards Israel "to demonstrate his hatred". Hizbullah operatives will provide him with security throughout his visit. According to the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Anbaa Syrian, President Bashar Assad advised Ahmadinejad not to visit southern Lebanon. In response, Ahmadinejad expounded the "strategic importance for him because southern Lebanon is Iran's border with Israel".

See also

Politics of Iran

Haghani Circle

Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi

Advisors to the president: Hamid Mowlana, Mohammad-Ali Ramin, Ali Akbar Javanfekr

2006 Iranian sumptuary law controversy

References

Further reading

"Referral of Iranian President Ahmadinejad on the Charge of Incitement to Commit Genocide" by Justus Reid Weiner, Esq., with Amb. Meir Rosenne, Prof. Elie Wiesel, Amb. Dore Gold, Irit Kohn, Adv., Amb. Eytan Bentsur, and MK Dan Naveh

External links

Official website of the President of Iran

Blog of President Ahmadinejad

Biography by CIDOB Foundation

Video Archive of President Ahmadinejad

Collected news and commentary at The New York Times

Interview with Ahmadinejad in TIME Magazine

The Results As They Came In:

|- |- |- |-

Category:1956 births Category:Antisemitism Category:Current national leaders Category:Holocaust deniers Category:9/11 conspiracy theorists Category:Iranian governors Category:Iranian anti-communists Category:Living people Category:Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Category:Mayors of Tehran Category:Presidents of Iran Category:Shi'a politicians Category:Iranian civil engineers Category:Islamic Society of Engineers politicians Category:Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran politicians

Name	David Kaye
Caption	Kaye at an autograph session at Botcon 2008 in Cincinnati, Ohio
Birth name	David V. Hope
Birth date	October 14, 1964
Birth place	Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
Occupation	Voice actor/Announcer
Years active	1986–present
Spouse	Maria Hope
Website	http://www.davidkaye.com/

David V. Hope (born October 14, 1964), known professionally as David Kaye, is a Canadian actor who is better recognized for his work as a voice actor. His most recognized roles include Sesshomaru in the shōnen anime InuYasha, Treize Khushrenada in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Megatron in five of the Transformers series (Beast Wars, Beast Machines, , , and ), and Clank in the Ratchet And Clank series of video games.

Career

Kaye began his career in radio in the early 1980s, working in London, Ontario and eventually transferring to station LG73 (also known as CKLG, which became CHMJ (AM) in 2001) in British Columbia, Vancouver from 1989 to 1994. Whilst there he was part of "The Morning Zoo" team, writing and improvising material as well as creating characters such as "Cowboy Dick." Kaye also had his own slot, the time of which changed over the years. In 1991, his slot aired from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Mondays to Fridays.

His acting studies include film and television, cold reading, classical theater acting and character voice study.

His big break in animation came in 1989, when he was cast as the voice of General Hawk in . Consequently, Kaye lost interest in radio, an integral reason behind his departure from LG73. Since then, he has voiced hundreds of characters, his excellent range allowing a wide variety of ages, accents and dialects. For many, his most notable role is of Megatron in Beast Wars and the related Beast Machines. Kaye continued to voice the subsequent incarnations of Megatron in , , and series. Kaye was not asked to voice Megatron for the series. He originally was not going to play the character in Transformers: Cybertron, however, Kaye was later asked to reprise his role after a handful of episodes were recorded with a different actor. This gap was the reason the initial three episodes of the series did not air in the United States until later (and even then, the first two were compressed into a single episode.) He has played Megatron for the longest duration when compared with other voice actors of the character. Kaye currently provides the voice of Megatron's antithesis Optimus Prime in , which makes him the first actor who has voiced both Megatron and Optimus Prime on a regular basis.

He is also well versed in automated dialogue replacement (ADR, commonly known as dubbing) in anime, playing Sesshomaru in the popular InuYasha and Soun Tendo in Ranma ½.

His voice has also carried him into audiobooks, video games and commercial radio and television announcing and advertising. He is the current voice over for the Fox Sports Network and can be heard on radio stations worldwide.

Kaye's live action roles consist of a large majority from the Sci-fi genre, such as Battlestar Galactica, The X Files, and The Twilight Zone. He is often typecast as a television reporter or anchor. Kaye has stated that he often becomes more interested with the technical aspects of live action acting rather than preparing for the roles themselves. Consequently, his on-camera roles have waned. Besides there is little time, as 12 hour days in studio recording tend to cut into his time to seriously pursue on-camera roles. He's been asked on several occasions to 'jump back in'. "When the time is right and I can devote more time to the craft, you bet." Additionally, his theatre work has included the popular plays A Streetcar Named Desire and Of Mice and Men.

Currently, Kaye has chosen to dedicate his working hours to voice work, placing his theatre and live action roles on the sidelines.

Filmography

Animation

Hot Wheels AcceleRacers - Deezel "Porkchop" Riggs

Death Note - Shinigami (ep4), additional voices

Dragon Ball Z - Recoome, Brocco

Barbie Mariposa - Royal Guard

Barbie and the Three Musketeers - Alexander

Barbie as Rapunzel - Hugo

Beast Wars - Megatron

- Batou

MegaMan NT Warrior - ProtoMan.EXE

Ronin Warriors - The Ancient One/Narrator

Coconut Fred's Fruit Salad Island - Bunga Berry

Beast Wars/Beast Machines - Megatron and Savage/Noble

Exosquad - General Draconis, Lt. Hallas

Skysurfer Strike Force - Jack Hollister/Skysurfer One (season 2)

- Professor X, Apocalypse

InuYasha - Sesshomaru

Make Way for Noddy - Noddy

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing - Treize Khushrenada

Key the Metal Idol - Tomoyo Wakagi

Ranma ½ - Soun Tendo, The Gambling King, Daisuke, Additional Voices

Street Fighter - Akuma

- Professor Ramon De la Porta

Transformers Armada, Transformers Energon, Transformers Cybertron - Megatron, Galvatron

Kleo The Misfit Unicorn - Slim and Various

Class of the Titans - Cronus

Broken Saints - Lear Dunham

- Iron Man

The Greatest Heroes of the Bible - Various voices

- Optimus Prime, Grimlock, Lugnut, Cliffjumper, Warpath, Highbrow

/ - Kim Kaphwan

Night Warriors: The Anime - Pyron

Eat-Man '98 - Bolt Crank (Only in the first two episodes; the remaining episodes were not dubbed into English)

Maison Ikkoku - Master of Cha-Cha Maru

Monster Rancher - Monol, Captain Clay, Celius, End Bringer

Up - Newsreel announcer

The Twisted Whiskers Show -Claude

" " -Narrator (uncredited)

Live action

Martian Child - Andy

Battlestar Galactica - James McManus (Season 1: "Colonial Day", Season 2: "Lay Down Your Burdens (Part 1)", "Lay Down Your Burdens (Part 2)")

X2: X-Men United - TV Host (Uncredited)

Happy Gilmore - Reporter

The X Files - (2 episodes)

Carpool - Scott Lewis

Death Note - voice of Koreyoshi Kitamura

Video games

Ratchet & Clank series - Clank

, Resistance 2 - Nathan Hale

Psychonauts - Ford Cruller

Kessen - Narrator

Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2 - Üso Ewin

- Iron Man, Daredevil

- ProtoMan.EXE

Impossible Creatures - Upton Julius

- Sesshomaru

- Random Pilots

Beetle Adventure Racing - Game Announcer

- Suhadi Sadono

Transformers - Megatron

- Electro

- John Locke

Transformers Animated - Optimus Prime and Lugnut

Need For Speed series - Game Announcer

- Captain America, Col. Nick Fury

- Matt Hazard

- Mysterio

- TBA

Other

BBC Radio 1 - Announcer: Coverage of Miami Winter Music Conference 2007 Radio 1 In Miami

External links

Interview with David Kaye - Jan 2004

Category:1964 births Category:Audio book narrators Category:Canadian film actors Category:Canadian television actors Category:Canadian voice actors Category:Living people Category:People from Peterborough, Ontario

Caption	Pitt at 2008 premiere of Burn After Reading
Alt	A Caucasian with light brown hair, blue eyes and a short brown beard, in front of a turquoise background. He is wearing a white shirt and white hat.
Birth name	William Bradley Pitt
Occupation	Actor, producer
Birth date	December 18, 1963
Birth place	Shawnee, Oklahoma, United States
Years active	1987–present
Spouse	Jennifer Aniston (2000–2005, divorced)
Partner	Angelina Jolie (2005–present)
Children	3 sons, 3 daughters
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of Missouri

William Bradley "Brad" Pitt

Pitt began his acting career with television guest appearances, including a role on the CBS prime-time soap opera Dallas in 1987. He later gained recognition as the cowboy hitchhiker who seduces Geena Davis's character in the 1991 road movie Thelma & Louise. Pitt's first leading roles in big-budget productions came with A River Runs Through It (1992) and (1994). He was cast opposite Anthony Hopkins in the 1994 drama Legends of the Fall, which earned him his first Golden Globe nomination. In 1995 he gave critically acclaimed performances in the crime thriller Seven and the science fiction film 12 Monkeys, the latter securing him a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and an Academy Award nomination. Four years later, in 1999, Pitt starred in the cult hit Fight Club. He then starred in the major international hit as Rusty Ryan in Ocean's Eleven (2001) and its sequels, Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007). His greatest commercial successes have been Troy (2004) and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005). Pitt received his second Academy Award nomination for his title role performance in the 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Following a high-profile relationship with actress Gwyneth Paltrow, Pitt was married to actress Jennifer Aniston for five years. Pitt currently lives with actress Angelina Jolie in a relationship that has generated wide publicity. He and Jolie have six children—Maddox, Zahara, Pax, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne. Since beginning his relationship with Jolie, he has become increasingly involved in social issues both in the United States and internationally. Pitt owns a production company named Plan B Entertainment, whose productions include the 2007 Academy Award winning Best Picture, The Departed.

Early life

The son of Jane Etta (née Hillhouse), a high school counselor, and William Alvin Pitt, a truck company owner, Pitt was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma. he grew up in Springfield, Missouri, where the family moved soon after his birth. He was raised as a conservative Southern Baptist. As a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity, he acted in several fraternity shows. As graduation approached, Pitt saw his friends getting jobs but did not feel ready to settle down himself. He loved films—"a portal into different worlds for me"—and, since films were not made in Missouri, he decided he would go to where they were made. and dressing up as an El Pollo Loco chicken to pay for acting lessons.

Pitt's onscreen career began in 1987, with uncredited parts in the films No Way Out, No Man's Land and Less Than Zero. He appeared in four episodes of the CBS primetime soap opera Dallas between December 1987 and February 1988 as Randy, the boyfriend of Charlie Wade (played by Shalane McCall). Speaking of his scenes with McCall, Pitt later said "It was kind of wild, because I'd never even met her before."

In the same year, the Yugoslavian–U.S. co-production The Dark Side of the Sun (1988) gave Pitt his first leading film role, as a young American taken by his family to the Adriatic to find a remedy for a skin condition. However, the film was shelved on the outbreak of the Croatian War of Independence, and was released only in 1997.

Pitt was cast as Billy Canton, a drug addict who takes advantage of a young runaway (played by Juliette Lewis) in the 1990 NBC television movie Too Young to Die?, the story of an abused teenager sentenced to death for a murder. Ken Tucker, television reviewer for Entertainment Weekly wrote: "Pitt is a magnificent slimeball as her hoody boyfriend; looking and sounding like a malevolent John Cougar Mellencamp, he's really scary."

After years of supporting roles in movies and frequent television guest appearances, broader public recognition came for Pitt with his supporting role in the 1991 road film Thelma & Louise. He played J.D., a small-time criminal who befriends Thelma (Geena Davis). His love scene with Davis has been cited as the moment that defined Pitt as a sex symbol.

After Thelma & Louise, Pitt starred in the 1991 film Johnny Suede, a low-budget picture about an aspiring rock star, and the 1992 film Cool World, Pitt took the role of Paul Maclean in the 1992 biographical film A River Runs Through It, directed by Robert Redford. His portrayal of the character has been described as a career-making performance, proving that Pitt could be more than a "cowboy-hatted hunk", although he admitted that he felt under pressure when making the film. Pitt added that he considered it one of his "weakest performances ... It's so weird that it ended up being the one that I got the most attention for." Pitt also garnered attention for a brief appearance in the cult hit True Romance as a stoner named Floyd, providing much needed comic relief to the action film. He capped the year by winning a ShoWest Award for Male Star of Tomorrow.

Critical success

1994 marked a significant turning point in Pitt's career. Starring as vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac in the feature film , based on Anne Rice's 1976 novel of the same name, he was part of an ensemble cast that included Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunst, Christian Slater, and Antonio Banderas. his performance was poorly received. According to the Dallas Observer, "Brad Pitt ... is a large part of the problem [in the film]. When directors play up his cocky, hunkish, folksy side ... he's a joy to watch. But there's nothing about him that suggests inner torment or even self-awareness, which makes him a boring Louis."

in 1995 and 2000.]]

Following the release of Interview with the Vampire, Pitt starred in Legends of the Fall (1994), a film set during the first four decades of the twentieth century. Pitt portrayed Tristan Ludlow, son of Colonel William Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins), and received his first Golden Globe Award nomination, in the Best Actor category. Aidan Quinn and Henry Thomas co-starred as Pitt's brothers. Although the film's reception was mixed, many film critics complimented Pitt's performance. Janet Maslin of The New York Times said, "Pitt's diffident mix of acting and attitude works to such heartthrob perfection it's a shame the film's superficiality gets in his way" while the Deseret News predicted that Legends of the Fall would solidify Pitt's reputation as a lead actor.

In 1995, Pitt starred alongside Morgan Freeman and Gwyneth Paltrow in the crime thriller Seven, playing a detective on the trail of a serial killer (played by Kevin Spacey). Pitt called the film a great movie and declared the part would expand his acting horizons, expressing a desire to move on from "this 'pretty boy' thing [...] and play someone with flaws". His performance was critically well-received, with Variety saying that it was screen acting at its best, further remarking on Pitt's ability to turn in a "determined, energetic, creditable job" as the detective. Seven earned $327 million at the international box office. He won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film

The following year he had a role in the legal drama Sleepers (1996), based on the Lorenzo Carcaterra's novel of the same name. The film received mixed reviews. In the 1997 movie The Devil's Own Pitt starred, opposite Harrison Ford, as the Irish Republican Army terrorist Rory Devany, a role for which he was required to learn an Irish accent. Critical opinion was divided on his approximation of the accent; "Pitt finds the right tone of moral ambiguity, but at times his Irish brogue is too convincing – it's hard to understand what he's saying", wrote the San Francisco Chronicle while a contributor from The Charleston Gazette opined that it had favored Pitt's accent over the movie. The Devil's Own grossed $140 million worldwide, Pitt trained for months for the role, which demanded significant mountain climbing and trekking practice, including by rock climbing in California and the European Alps with his co-star David Thewlis. The film received mostly negative reviews, and was generally considered a disappointment.

Pitt then had the lead role in 1998's Meet Joe Black. He portrayed a personification of death inhabiting the body of a young man to learn what it is like to be human. The film received mixed reviews, and many were critical of Pitt's performance. According to Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle, Pitt was unable to "to make an audience believe that he knows all the mysteries of death and eternity."

From 1999 to 2003

In 1999, Pitt portrayed Tyler Durden, an uncompromising and charismatic individual, in Fight Club, a film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel of the same name, directed by David Fincher. Pitt prepared for the part with lessons in boxing, taekwondo, and grappling. To look the part, Pitt consented to the removal of pieces of his front teeth which were restored when filming ended. While promoting Fight Club, Pitt said that the purpose of the film was not necessarily to take one's aggressions out on someone else but rather to "have an experience, take a punch more" and see how you come out on the other end. Fight Club premiered at the 1999 Venice International Film Festival and, despite divided critical opinion on the film as a whole, Pitt's performance was broadly praised. Paul Clinton of CNN noted the risky yet successful nature of the film while Variety remarked upon Pitt's ability to be "cool, charismatic and more dynamically physical, perhaps than [...] his breakthrough role in Thelma and Louise". In spite of a worse-than-expected box office performance, Fight Club became a cult classic after its DVD release in 2000.

, Matt Damon, Andy García, Julia Roberts, cast of Ocean's Eleven and director Steven Soderbergh in December 2001]]

Following Fight Club, Pitt was cast as an Irish Gypsy boxer with a barely intelligible accent in Guy Ritchie's 2000 gangster film Snatch. Several reviewers were critical of Snatch, however most praised Pitt. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said Pitt was "ideally cast as an Irishman whose accent is so thick even Brits can't understand him", going on to say that, before Snatch, Pitt had been "shackled by roles that called for brooding introspection, but recently he has found his calling in black comic outrageousness and flashy extroversion;" while Amy Taubin of The Village Voice claimed that "Pitt gets maximum comic mileage out of a one-joke role".

The following year Pitt starred opposite Julia Roberts in the romantic comedy The Mexican, a film that garnered a broad range of reviews but enjoyed box office success. Salon.com enjoyed the film, though noting that neither Pitt nor Redford provided "much of an emotional connection for the audience". On November 22, 2001, Pitt made a guest appearance in the of the television series Friends, playing a man with a grudge against Rachel Green, played by Jennifer Aniston, to whom Pitt was married at the time. For this performance he was nominated for an Emmy Award in the category for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. In December 2001, Pitt had the role of Rusty Ryan in the heist film Ocean's Eleven, a remake of the 1960 Rat Pack original. He joined an ensemble cast including George Clooney, Matt Damon, Andy García, and Julia Roberts. Well-received by critics, Ocean's Eleven was successful at the box office, earning $450 million worldwide. and participating in his own staged abduction in another episode. In the same year, Pitt had a cameo role in George Clooney's directorial debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. He took on his first voice-acting roles in 2003, lending his voice to the titular character of the DreamWorks animated film and playing Boomhauer's brother, Patch, in an episode of the animated television series King of the Hill.

After 2003

Pitt had two major film roles in 2004, starring as Achilles in Troy, and making a second appearance as Rusty Ryan, in the sequel Ocean's Twelve. He spent six months sword training before the filming of Troy, based on the Iliad. An on-set injury to his Achilles tendon delayed production on the picture for several weeks. With a total worldwide gross of $497 million, Troy remains Pitt's most commercially successful picture to date. The film earned $364 million outside the U.S. and $133 million domestically. Stephen Hunter of The Washington Times stated that Pitt excelled at such a demanding role. Ocean's Twelve earned $362 million worldwide, and Pitt and Clooney's dynamic was described (by CNN's Paul Clinton) as "the best male chemistry since Paul Newman and Robert Redford".

In 2005, Pitt starred in the Doug Liman-directed action comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith, in which a bored married couple discover that each is an assassin sent to kill the other. The feature received reasonable reviews but was generally lauded for the chemistry between Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who played his character's wife Jane Smith. The Star Tribune noted that "while the story feels haphazard, the movie gets by on gregarious charm, galloping energy and the stars' thermonuclear screen chemistry." Mr. & Mrs. Smith earned $478 million worldwide, making it one of the biggest hits of 2005.

in July 2009.|alt=A Caucasian male, who is wearing aviator sunglasses, has light brown hair and a short brown beard. He wears a grey suit jacket, white shirt, and grey tie. Behind him are people with single-lens reflex cameras.]]

For his next feature film, Pitt starred opposite Cate Blanchett in Alejandro González Iñárritu's multi-narrative drama Babel (2006). Pitt's performance was critically well-received, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer believed that he was credible and gave the film visibility. Pitt later said he regarded taking the part as one of the best decisions of his career. The film was screened at a special presentation at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and was later featured at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. Babel received seven Academy and Golden Globe award nominations, wining the Best Drama Golden Globe, and earned Pitt a nomination for the Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe. While less lucrative than the first two films, this sequel earned $311 million at the international box office. Directed by Andrew Dominik and produced by Pitt's company Plan B, the film premiered at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, with Pitt playing a "scary and charismatic" role, according to Lewis Beale of Film Journal International, and earning Pitt the Volpi Cup award for Best Actor at the 64th Venice International Film Festival. Although Pitt attended the festival to promote the film, he left early after being attacked by a fan who pushed through his bodyguards. He eventually collected the award one year later at the 2008 festival.

Pitt's next appearance was in the 2008 black comedy Burn After Reading, his first collaboration with the Coen brothers. The film received a positive reception from critics, with The Guardian calling it "a tightly wound, slickly plotted spy comedy", noting that Pitt's performance was one of the funniest. with Pitt's "sensitive" performance making Benjamin Button a "timeless masterpiece," according to Michael Sragow of The Baltimore Sun. The performance earned Pitt his first Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, as well as a fourth Golden Globe and second Academy Award nomination, all in the category for Best Actor. The film itself received thirteen Academy Award nominations in total, and grossed $329 million at the box office worldwide. Pitt played Lieutenant Aldo Raine, an American resistance fighter battling Nazis in German-occupied France. The film was a box office hit, taking $311 million worldwide, The film received multiple awards and nominations, including eight Academy Award nominations and seven MTV Movie Award nominations, including Best Male Performance for Pitt. He voiced the superhero character Metro Man in the 2010 animated feature Megamind. Pitt is due to appear in Terrence Malick's drama The Tree of Life, co-starring Sean Penn, and has signed on to appear as a British explorer searching for a mysterious Amazonian civilization in the Lost City of Z, based on David Grann's eponymous book.

Other projects

Film and television work

Along with Jennifer Aniston and Brad Grey, CEO of Paramount Pictures, Pitt founded the film production company Plan B Entertainment in 2002, although Aniston and Grey withdrew in 2005. The company has produced several films, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory starring Johnny Depp in 2005, as well as 2007's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and A Mighty Heart, starring Angelina Jolie. Plan B was also involved in producing The Departed, the winner of the 2007 Academy Award for Best Picture. Pitt was credited onscreen as a producer; however, only Graham King was ruled eligible for the Oscar win. Pitt has been reluctant to discuss the production company in interviews. Other commercial appearances came in television spots designed for Asian markets, advertising such products as the Acura Integra, in which he was featured opposite Russian model Tatiana Sorokko, as well as SoftBank and Edwin Jeans.

Humanitarian causes

Pitt supports the ONE Campaign, an organization aimed at combating AIDS and poverty in the developing world. He narrated the 2005 PBS public television series Rx for Survival: A Global Health Challenge, which discusses current global health issues and traveled to Pakistan in November 2005 with Angelina Jolie to see the impact of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. The following year Pitt and Jolie flew to Haiti, where they visited a school supported by Yéle Haïti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip hop musician Wyclef Jean. In May 2007, Pitt and Jolie donated $1 million to three organizations in Chad and Sudan dedicated to those affected by the crisis in the Darfur region. Along with Clooney, Damon, Don Cheadle, and Jerry Weintraub, Pitt is one of the founders of "Not On Our Watch", an organization that tries to focus global attention and resources to stop and prevent genocides such as that in Darfur.

Pitt has a sustained interest in architecture and has narrated Design e2, a PBS television series focused on worldwide efforts to build environmentally friendly structures through sustainable architecture and design. He founded the Make It Right Foundation in 2006, organizing housing professionals in New Orleans to finance and construct 150 sustainable, affordable new houses in New Orleans's Ninth Ward following the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. The project involves 13 architectural firms and the environmental organization Global Green USA, with several of the firms donating their services. Pitt and philanthropist Steve Bing have each committed $5 million in donations. The first six homes were completed in October 2008, and in September 2009 Pitt received an award in recognition of the project from the U.S. Green Building Council, a non-profit trade organization that promotes sustainability in how buildings are designed, built and operated. Pitt met with U.S. President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi in March 2009 to promote his concept of green housing as a national model and to discuss federal funding possibilities.

In September 2006, Pitt and Jolie established a charitable organization, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, to aid humanitarian causes around the world. The foundation made initial donations of $1 million each to Global Action for Children and Doctors Without Borders, According to federal filings, Pitt and Jolie invested $8.5 million into the foundation in 2006; it gave away $2.4 million in 2006 and $3.4 million in 2007. In June 2009 the Jolie-Pitt Foundation donated $1 million to a U.N. refugee agency to help Pakistanis displaced by fighting between troops and Taliban militants. In January 2010 the foundation donated $1 million to Doctors Without Borders for emergency medical assistance to help victims of the Haiti earthquake.

In the media

Pitt's sex appeal has been picked up by many sources including Empire, who named him one of the 25 sexiest stars in film history in 1995. Pitt appeared on Forbes's annual Celebrity 100 list of the 100 most powerful celebrities in 2006, 2007, and 2008, at No. 20, No. 5, and No. 10 respectively. In 2007 he was listed among the Time 100, a compilation of the 100 most influential people in the world, as selected annually by Time. Pitt was again included in the Time 100 in 2009, this time in the Builders and Titans list.

in 2007]]

Pitt visited the University of Missouri campus in October 2004 to encourage students to vote in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, in which he supported John Kerry. Later in October he publicly supported the principle of public funding for embryonic stem-cell research. "We have to make sure that we open up these avenues so that our best and our brightest can go find these cures that they believe they will find," he said. In support of this he endorsed Proposition 71, a California ballot initiative intended to provide federal government funding for stem-cell research.

Starting in 2005, Pitt's relationship with Angelina Jolie became one of the most reported celebrity stories worldwide. After confirming that Jolie was pregnant in early 2006, the unprecedented media hype surrounding the coupled reached what Reuters, in a story titled "The Brangelina fever," called "the point of insanity". Similarly intense media interest greeted the announcement two years later of Jolie's second pregnancy; for the two weeks Jolie spent in a seaside hospital in Nice, reporters and photographers camped outside on the promenade to report on the birth.

In September 2008 Pitt donated $100,000 to the campaign against California's 2008 ballot proposition Proposition 8, an initiative to overturn the state Supreme Court decision that had legalized same-sex marriage. Pitt stated his reasons for the stance: "Because no one has the right to deny another their life, even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn't harm another and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8."

Personal life

In the late 1980s and the 1990s Pitt was involved in successive relationships with several of his co-stars, including Robin Givens (Head of the Class),

and Pitt at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.]]

Pitt met Friends actress Jennifer Aniston in 1998 and married her in a private wedding ceremony in Malibu on July 29, 2000. however, in January 2005, Pitt and Aniston announced that they had decided formally to separate after seven years together. Two months later Aniston filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences.

During Pitt's divorce from Aniston, his involvement with Mr. & Mrs. Smith co-star Angelina Jolie attracted vigorous media attention. While Pitt denied claims of adultery, he admitted that he "fell in love" with Jolie on the set and said that production on Mr. & Mrs. Smith would continue after his separation from Aniston.

In April 2005, one month after Aniston filed for divorce, a set of paparazzi photographs emerged showing Pitt, Jolie and her son Maddox at a beach in Kenya; the pictures were construed in the press as evidence of a relationship between Pitt and Jolie. During the summer of 2005 the two were seen together with increasing frequency, and the entertainment media dubbed the couple "Brangelina". Pitt and Aniston's divorce was finalized by the Los Angeles Superior Court on October 2, 2005, legally ending their marriage. In an October 2006 interview with Esquire, Pitt said that he and Jolie would marry when everyone in America is legally able to marry. In February 2010, Pitt and Jolie sued the British tabloid News of the World over reports that the two were splitting up.

Despite media reports that Pitt and Aniston have an acrimonious relationship, in a February 2009 interview, Pitt said that he and Aniston "check in with each other", adding that they were both big parts of each others' lives.

In an October 2007 interview, Pitt revealed that he is no longer a Christian and does not believe in an afterlife. "There's peace in understanding that I have only one life, here and now, and I'm responsible." In a July 2009 interview he said that he did not believe in God, and that he was "probably 20 percent atheist and 80 percent agnostic."

Children

In July 2005, Pitt accompanied Jolie to Ethiopia, where she adopted her second child, a six-month-old girl named Zahara, It was confirmed, in December 2005, that Pitt was seeking to legally adopt Jolie's two children, Maddox and Zahara; on January 19, 2006, a California judge granted their request to change the children's surnames to "Jolie-Pitt".

Jolie gave birth to a daughter, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, in Swakopmund, Namibia, on May 27, 2006. Pitt confirmed that their newly born daughter would have a Namibian passport. The couple sold the first pictures of Shiloh through the distributor Getty Images and the North American rights were purchased by People for over $4.1 million, while British magazine Hello! obtained the international rights for approximately $3.5 million. The proceeds from the sale, up to $10 million worldwide, were donated to an undisclosed charity by Pitt and Jolie. Madame Tussauds in New York unveiled a wax figure of two-month-old Shiloh, making Shiloh the first infant to have a statue at Madame Tussauds.

On March 15, 2007, Jolie adopted a three-year-old boy from Vietnam, Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt (originally Pax Thien Jolie). Since the orphanage did not allow unmarried couples to adopt, Jolie adopted Pax as a single parent, and Pitt later adopted him as his son in the United States.

Following months of media speculation, Jolie confirmed in an interview at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival that she was expecting twins. She gave birth at the Lenval hospital in Nice, France, on July 12, 2008. The twins were named Knox Léon and Vivienne Marcheline. The rights for the first images of Knox and Vivienne were jointly sold to People and Hello! for $14 million—the most expensive celebrity pictures ever taken. The couple donated the proceeds to the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.

Filmography

{| class="wikitable sortable" |+ Actor |- ! Year ! Film ! Role ! class="unsortable" | Notes |- | 1987 | No Way Out | Officer at party | |- | 1987 | No Man's Land | Waiter | |- | 1987 | Less Than Zero | Partygoer | |- | 1987 | Growing Pains | Jeff | TV series (two episodes: "" and "" [1989]) |- | 1987 | Dallas | Randy | TV series (four episodes) |- | 1988 | 21 Jump Street | Peter | TV series (one episode: "Best Years of Your Life") |- | 1987 | Happy Together | Brian | |- | 1987 | Cutting Class | Dwight Ingalls | |- | 1987 | Head of the Class | Chuck | TV series (one episode: "Partners") |- | 1987 | Freddy's Nightmares | Rick Austin | TV series (one episode: "Black Tickets") |- | 1990 | | Cameraman | TV movie |- | 1990 | Too Young to Die? | Billy Canton | TV movie |- | 1990 | Glory Days | Walker Lovejoy | TV series (six episodes) |- | 1991 | Across the Tracks | Joe Maloney | |- | 1991 | Thelma & Louise | J.D. | |- | 1991 | Johnny Suede | Johnny Suede | |- | 1992 | Contact | Cox | |- | 1992 | Cool World | Detective Frank Harris | |- | 1992 | | Paul Maclean | |- | 1993 | Kalifornia | Early Grayce | |- | 1993 | True Romance | Floyd | |- | 1994 | | Elliott Fowler | |- | 1994 | | Louis de Pointe du Lac | MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - MaleMTV Movie Award for Most Desirable MaleNominated–MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo shared with Tom CruiseNominated–Saturn Award for Best Actor |- | 1994 | Legends of the Fall | Tristan Ludlow | Nominated–Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama |- | 1995 | Seven | David Mills | MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable MaleNominated–MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo shared with Morgan FreemanNominated–MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Male |- | 1995 | 12 Monkeys | Jeffrey Goines | Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion PictureSaturn Award for Best Supporting ActorNominated–Academy Award for Best Supporting ActorNominated–MTV Movie Award for Best Male Performance |- | 1996 | Sleepers | Michael Sullivan | |- | 1997 | | Francis "Frankie" Austin McQuire/Rory Devaney | |- | 1997 | Seven Years in Tibet | Heinrich Harrer | |- | 1997 | | Rick | |- | 1998 | Meet Joe Black | Joe Black/Man in the Coffee Shop | |- | 1999 | Fight Club | Tyler Durden | |- | 1999 | Being John Malkovich | Himself | Cameo |- | 2000 | Snatch | Mickey O'Neil | Nominated–Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture |- | 2001 | | Jerry Welbach | |- | 2001 | Spy Game | Tom Bishop | |- | 2001 | | Rusty Ryan | Nominated–MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen TeamNominated–Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast |- | 2001 | Friends | Will Colbert | TV series (one episode: "The One with the Rumor")Nominated–Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series |- | 2002 | Full Frontal | Himself | |- | 2002 | Confessions of a Dangerous Mind | Brad, Bachelor #1 | |- | 2003 | | Sinbad | Voice actor |- | 2003 | Abby Singer | Himself | Cameo |- | 2004 | Troy | Achilles | Teen Choice Award for Best Action ActorNominated–MTV Movie Award for Best Fight shared with Eric BanaNominated–MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Male |- | 2004 | | Rusty Ryan | Nominated–Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast |- | 2005 | Mr. & Mrs. Smith | John Smith | MTV Movie Award for Best Fight shared with Angelina JolieNominated–MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss shared with Angelina Jolie |- | 2006 | Babel | Richard | Gotham Award for Best Ensemble CastPalm Springs International Film Festival for Best CastSan Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best CastNominated–Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting ActorNominated–Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion PictureNominated–Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion PictureNominated–Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture |- | 2007 | | Rusty Ryan | |- | 2007 | | Jesse James | Venice Film Festival – Volpi Cup for Best Actor |- | 2008 | Burn After Reading | Chad Feldheimer | Nominated–BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting RoleNominated–Detroit Film Critics Society Award for Best CastNominated–Houston Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor |- | 2008 | | Benjamin Button | Nominated–Academy Award for Best ActorNominated–BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading RoleNominated–Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best ActorNominated–Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best CastNominated-Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best ActorNominated–Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture DramaNominated–Houston Film Critics Society Award for Best ActorNominated–Saturn Award for Best ActorNominated–Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion PictureNominated–Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role |- | 2009 | Inglourious Basterds | Lt. Aldo Raine | Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best CastPhoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best CastSan Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best CastScreen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion PictureNominated–Detroit Film Critics Society Award for Best CastNominated–MTV Movie Award for Best Performance |- | 2010 | Megamind | Metro-Man | |- | 2011 | | Mr. O'Brien | completed |- | 2011 | Moneyball | Billy Beane | filming |}

{| class="wikitable sortable" |+ Producer |- ! Year ! Film ! class="unsortable" | Notes |- | 2006 | God Grew Tired of Us | Executive producer |- | 2006 | | Academy Award for Best PictureNominated–BAFTA Award for Best Film |- | 2006 | Running with Scissors | |- | 2007 | | Executive producer |- | 2007 | Year of the Dog | Executive producer |- | 2007 | | Co-producerNominated–Independent Spirit Award for Best Film |- | 2007 | | |- | 2008 | Pretty/Handsome | Executive producer (TV) |- | 2009 | | Executive producer |- | 2009 | | Executive producer |- | 2010 | Kick-Ass | |- | 2010 | Eat Pray Love | |- | 2011 | | |}

References

External links

Not On Our Watch – Founded by: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Jerry Weintraub

Category:1963 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century actors Category:21st-century actors Category:Actors from Oklahoma Category:American agnostics Category:American atheists Category:American film actors Category:American film producers Category:American television actors Category:Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Former Baptists Category:Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:People from Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma Category:University of Missouri alumni