Build the Base: Community Organizing to Spark Jewish Teen Engagement

Rabba Rori Picker Neiss serves as the Senior Vice President and Rabbi in Residence at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA). Prior to that she was Executive Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis, an organization committed to a vibrant and secure Jewish community in a thriving and just St. Louis region, after previously serving as a member of the clergy team at Bais Abraham Congregation, a Modern Orthodox Jewish synagogue in University City, Missouri. Rori is one of the first graduates of Yeshivat Maharat, a pioneering institution training Orthodox Jewish women to be spiritual leaders and halakhic (Jewish legal) authorities. She is a David Hartman Center fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, a CLAL Rabbis Without Borders fellow, and co-editor of “InterActive Faith: The Essential Interreligious Community-Building Handbook.” She serves on the Board of Directors for HIAS and the Parliament of the World’s Religions. Rori is married to Russel Neiss, a software engineer, and they have three children.