Yaakov Menken

Rabbi Yaakov Menken (born 1965) is an Orthodox Rabbi and early pioneer in the field of Internet-based Orthodox Jewish outreach. He is the founder and Director of Project Genesis, and creator of its website Torah.org. He is the co-founder and a featured writer on Cross-Currents,[1] an online blog, as well as the author of the Everything Torah Book.[2] He is the managing director for the Coalition for Jewish Values.[3]

Menken graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Computer Science, and then attended Yeshivas Ohr Somayach, Beth Medrash Gavoha in Lakewood and Jerusalem, and the Mirrer Yeshiva Jerusalem.[4]

Career

Project Genesis

Menken founded Project Genesis in 1993, hoping to involve Jewish university students in Jewish education. He began offering online classes, and invited other, less technologically knowledgeable rabbis to join him. When the internet rapidly grew, the subscriber base of Project Genesis grew from 50 to over 80,000 worldwide.

Cross-Currents

Menken teamed with Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, to create the Cross-Currents blog in late 2004. Adlerstein describes Cross-Currents as aiming "to expose the intersection between two currents: the timeless flow of authentic Torah thought, and the ebb and tide of current affairs."[5]

Coalition for Jewish Values

In 2017 Menken was among the founders of Coalition for Jewish Values, and is its Managing Director.[6] In a profile of Menken in the Jewish Press during the group's first year, he said the group's positions were generally "what people would call 'conservative,' but that's because 'conservative' is the name given to those who support traditional values... our religion puts us into a particular political camp."[7]

Other work

In 1998, 1999, and 2000, Menken published columns in Jewish World Review, discussing a variety of Judaic topics.[8][9][10]

He led the technical development of Contact Loved Ones,[11] an open voicemail system for those displaced by natural disasters. This story was picked up by the general media and especially by technical publications.[12]

Publications

In 2005, Adams Media published The Everything Torah Book: All You Need To Understand The Basics Of Jewish Law And The Five Books Of The Old Testament (Everything: Philosophy and Spirituality), part of the "Everything" series of guides.[2]

Notable Articles and Op-Eds

References
  1. "Cross-Currents". Cross-Currents.com.
  2. Yaakov Menken, The Everything Torah Book, Adams Media, 2005
  3. Sabes, Adam (2022-04-20). "Orthodox rabbis demand apology from Washington Post after identifying Libs of TikTok owner as Orthodox Jew". Fox News. Retrieved 2022-04-21.
  4. "About the Author". Retrieved October 19, 2014.
  5. "About Us Cross-Currents". Cross-Currents. Retrieved 2015-12-01.
  6. Guttman, Nathan. "Inspired By Trump Era, Orthodox Rabbis Launch New Political Group". The Forward. Retrieved 2022-04-24.
  7. Resnick, Elliot. "A Torah Voice In The Public Square: An Interview with Rabbi Yaakov Menken". The Jewish Press. Retrieved 2022-04-29.
  8. "Are you 'tolerant'?". Jewish World Review.
  9. "Valuing life". Jewish World Review.
  10. "Living the Wired Life: Are We Sacrificing Our Children?". Jewish World Review.
  11. "Contact Loved Ones". Contact Loved Ones.
  12. "Hurricane relief organizer lauds MySQL, open source". Search Enterprise Linux.
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