Officers

President

Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld recently stepped down from his position as spiritual leader of the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills in Queens, NY, where he served for over three decades. He is the Past President of the Vaad Harabbonim of Queens, The Queens Board of Rabbis. A member of the Executive of the Rabbinical Council of America and a member of Agudath Israel of America, he is also the Rabbinic Advisor and columnist for the Queens Jewish Link, the largest circulation Jewish newspaper in Queens, and a Rabbinic Coordinator for the Orthodox Union’s Kashruth division. Rabbi Schonfeld studied in Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavneh in Israel, and received ordination from Rav Shneur Kotler of Beth Medrash Gavoha Seminary in Lakewood, NJ, in 1980. He pursued graduate work in Holocaust Studies at Touro College in New York.

Vice-President

Rabbi Dov Fischer, an adjunct professor of law at two prominent Southern California law schools and previously a complex-litigation attorney at two of America’s most prestigious law firms, Jones Day and Akin Gump, serves as rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County, California and in leadership roles in several national rabbinic and Jewish organizations. He has been Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review, clerked for the Hon. Danny J. Boggs in the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and served on the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America and as a Vice President of the Zionist Organization of America. A Senior Contributing Editor at The American Spectator, his writings also regularly appear in Israel National News, the Jerusalem Post, Israel Hayom, and the Jewish Press. He has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, the New York Post, the Los Angeles Times, American Jewish History, and National Review. Rabbi Fischer has been conferred the American Jurisprudence Award in Legal Ethics and is author of Jews for Nothing and General Sharon’s War Against Time Magazine.

President Emeritus

Rabbi Pesach Lerner served as President of the CJV for its first five years. He is the founder and chairman of the Eretz HaKodesh party in the World Zionist Organization within Israel’s national institutions. He is also the Executive Vice-President Emeritus of the National Council of Young Israel, where he served for over twenty years. Rabbi Lerner holds Rabbinic ordination and advanced degrees in Talmudic Law from the Ner Israel Rabbinical College of Baltimore, MD, and also holds undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate degrees in Business, Education and Not-for-Profit Organizational Systems. Rabbi Lerner speaks throughout the United States and Israel on the Land and State of Israel, and the greater Jewish community. His articles have been published in numerous Jewish newspapers and magazines.

Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer is a rabbinic coordinator at OU Kosher and is a member of the editorial committee of Jewish Action magazine. Rabbi Gordimer is a staff writer for Cross-Currents.com, and he is a frequent contributor to various other publications. His articles about contemporary issues have appeared in Israel National News, Times of Israel, Yated Neeman, Jewish Link of New Jersey, Matzav, Ami Magazine and American Thinker, and his articles on Jewish law and thought are featured in Mesorah Journal, Daf Ha-Kashrus, Beis Yitzchak and YUTorah. Rabbi Gordimer received his undergraduate, rabbinical and law degrees from Yeshiva University. Rabbi Gordimer is a member of the Rabbinical Council of America and the New York Bar.

Midwestern Regional VP; Chairman, CJV Missouri

Rabbi Ze’ev Smason is Rabbi Emeritus of Nusach Hari B’nai Zion Congregation in St. Louis, Missouri, having retired from the pulpit in 2022 after nearly a quarter century of service. Rabbi Smason studied in Yeshivat Aish HaTorah in Jerusalem for eight years, and received rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Noach Weinberg and Rabbi Avrohom Kupshitz. He received a BA in Political Science from UCLA, and was associate director of Aish HaTorah Center of Jewish Studies of St. Louis for eight years. A twenty-year member of the Rabbinical Council of America and two-term member of the RCA Executive Committee, Rabbi Smason is active in many pro-Zionist organizations, causes and advocacy.

Southern Regional VP

Rabbi Moshe B. Parnes received Rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Moshe Halberstam, Chief Justice of the Jerusalem Rabbinic Court, and others. He studied in Bais Medrash Gavoha of Eretz Yisroel, and under luminaries such as Rabbi Abba Berman zt”l, Dean of Iyun HaTalmud. Besides being a founding member of the Atlanta Rabbinical Court (Beis Din), Rabbi Parnes has led congregations and schools for advanced studies (Kollelim) in Atlanta, GA and Dayton, OH, and is today the Dean/Rosh Kollel of the Hollywood Community Kollel of Hollywood, FL.

Israel Regional VP

For more than a quarter century, Rabbi Steven Pruzansky served as spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun, located in Teaneck, New Jersey — one of the most vibrant centers of Orthodox Jewish life today. Rabbi Pruzansky studied in yeshivot in Israel and the United States, and was ordained at Yeshiva Bnei Torah of Far Rockaway, New York. Rabbi Pruzansky earned a BA in history from Columbia University, and received a Juris Doctor degree from the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law in 1981. He practiced law for 13 years until assuming the pulpit at Congregation Bnai Yeshurun. He is a member of the New York and Federal Bars, and is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court. He has served as President of both the Vaad Harabonim (Rabbinical Board) of Queens and the Rabbinical Council of Bergen County, New Jersey, and is the author of four books. Rabbi and Mrs. Pruzansky made Aliyah in July, 2020 following his retirement from the pulpit, and they reside in Modi’in, Israel.

International Liaison

Rabbi Jonathan Guttentag of Manchester, United Kingdom, is the former Rabbi of the Whitefield Hebrew Congregation, which he led for over three decades. He established the Whitefield Community Kollel in 1990, an academy of advanced Torah learning, rabbinical training, community education and outreach. Since 2001 he has served as a member of the Standing Committee (the governing board) of the Conference of European Rabbis, and also as a member of the Greater Manchester Faith and Communities Leaders Group. From 2007 through 2018, he established and led the National Association of Orthodox Jewish Schools, NAJOS. Communal activism runs in his family; his great-grandfather Dr Nathan Birnbaum, a former secular Zionist leader, later became a leader and spokesman of Agudath Israel, while his late uncle Yaakov Birnbaum was the founder of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry.

Managing Director

Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the founding and current Managing Director of Coalition for Jewish Values, the chief executive officer of an organization representing over 2,500 traditional, Orthodox rabbis in American public policy. His writing has appeared in Fox News, Newsweek, The Federalist, the Jerusalem Post, and other mainstream and Jewish outlets. He is also the Director of Project Genesis, operator of Torah.org and other leading Internet resources for Jewish outreach and education. He co-founded and for decades served as co-editor of Cross-Currents, an online journal of Orthodox Jewish thought and opinion, and is the author of The Everything Torah Book, an introduction to basic Judaism and Torah thought. Rabbi Menken earned a BSE in Computer Science from Princeton University before pursuing rabbinic studies at yeshivos (traditional rabbinical seminaries) in both Israel and the United States.