Moshe Kotlarsky - Biography

Moshe J. Kotlarsky is an Orthodox Hasidic rabbi and vice chairman of the Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement which oversees 4,000 religious and educational institutions worldwide. He also directs development for the global network of Shluchim (emissaries) and chairs Chabad on Campus and the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute.

Biography

He is the son of Rabbi Tzvi Yosef (Hershel) Kotlarsky (d. 2008), a native of Otvosk, Poland who spent the war years in Shanghai. The elder Rabbi Kotlarsky was a member of the administration of Yeshiva Tomchei Temimim, the main Lubavitch yeshiva in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, for over 40 years.

He married the sister of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Kazen (1954–1998), a Chabad pioneer of using internet and email technology to spread Jewish knowledge.

Activities

Rabbi Kotlarsky is one of the public faces of Chabad, visiting heads of state, opening new Chabad Houses worldwide, and giving statements to the press. He was the Chabad spokesman who announced to the world the murder of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg by terrorists at the Mumbai Chabad House, and delivered an impassioned eulogy at their funerals.

Since 1984 he has directed the Kinus Hashluchim, the international conference of Chabad emissaries which takes place in New York each fall. At the conference, over 4,000 emissaries and their families participate in workshops, social events, a shared Shabbat and a banquet.

Family

His son, Mendy, is director of JNet, a Chabad phone study program which partners Jews in learning, and an organizer of other technological services available to shluchim.

Honors

In 2008 Kotlarsky was named to the Forward 50.

External links

• New Year's Greeting 5771 from Rabbi Moshe Kotlorsky