Rabbi Abraham Cooper | |
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.jpg) Cooper, 2024 | |
| Born | 1950 (age 74–75) New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation | Rabbi |
Abraham Cooper (born 1950) is an American rabbi. He is the associatedean and director of Global Social Action Agenda for theSimon Wiesenthal Center, aJewish human rights organization.[1] He is chairman emeritus of theUnited States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Rabbi Cooper has his B.A. and M.S. degrees fromYeshiva University and a Ph.D. from theJewish University of America. He is a recipient ofYeshiva University’s Bernard Revel Community Service Leadership Memorial Award and of theOrthodox Union’s National Leadership Award.
In the early 1970s, Cooper was involved in visitingSovietRefuseniks, ultimately leading to his work to open the first Jewish cultural center inMoscow in the 1980s, and lecturing at theSoviet Academy of Sciences and the Sakharov Foundation later in his career.
In 1977, he came toLos Angeles to work with RabbiMarvin Hier who founded the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Together with Rabbi Hier, Rabbi Cooper has met with world leaders, includingPope Benedict XVI, presidents, and foreign ministers.
In 1990, Cooper gavePublic Enemy'sChuck D a "conscious-raising” tour of theHolocaust Museum. “I think Chuck has an open mind on certain levels,” he said. “He may be ignorant of some of our history, but he’s not ananti-Semite.”[2] The tour was in response to Rabbi Cooper's frustration with the American music industry,[3] specifically the fact the record labels were releasing music with lyrics that were bigoted and/or racist.
In 1992 he publicly commented about the lyrics toIce Cube'sdiss trackNo Vaseline, in which Cube advocated violence againstJerry Heller, whom he identified as a "whiteJew": "We're not asking Ice Cube to mask the reality of the streets," he said. "By all means flag the social problems, but don't exploit them by turning a professional spat between a former manager and an artist into a racial dispute." Cube responded, "It's wrong for the rabbi to call me anti-Semitic. I respect Jewish people because they're unified. I wishblack people were as unified."[4]
In 1992, and again in 2003, he helped coordinate international conferences in Paris on antisemitism cosponsored byUNESCO.
In 1997, he coordinated the center's international conference, "Property and Restitution-The Moral Debt to History" in Geneva, Switzerland.[5]
He has testified before theUnited Nations inNew York and Geneva, presented testimony at the US Senate, the Japanese Diet, the French Parliament, the OSCE and is a founding member of Israel's Global Forum on Antisemitism.[6]
In 2003 Rabbi Cooper served on the transition team for Governor-elect of CaliforniaArnold Schwarzenegger.[7]
In February 2004, Rabbi Cooper traveled toKhartoum and was the first Jewish leader to meet with the leadership ofSudan including PresidentOmar al-Bashir to discuss human rights and terrorism- related issues. He has met withKing Hussein,King Abdullah andPrince Hassan of Jordan, former Indonesian PresidentAbdurrahman Wahid and thenGrand Mufti ofEgypt, Sheik Tantawi.
In 2005, Rabbi Cooper participated in an international conference on terrorism convened inMadrid on the first anniversary of the infamous train bombings in Spain's capital.
Rabbi Cooper is a regular op-ed contributor toThe New York Times,[8] The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times,[9] theMiami Herald,USA Today, theChicago Tribune, theGlobe and Mail,National Post,Le Monde, theJapan Times, TheStraits Times andMidstream magazine. He supervises the center's Digital Terrorism and Hate Project.
He has written theWorld Book Encyclopedia's entry onRaoul Wallenberg[10] and edited two major works on this Holocaust hero.
In 2016 Cooper was honored with the Rabbi Samuel S. and A. Irma Cohon Memorial Foundation Award.[11]
In 2017 Cooper welcomed the King of BahrainHamad bin Isa Al Khalifa at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles together withMarvin Hier, paving the way for theAbraham Accords viaTrack II diplomacy.[12]
In 2019 Rabbi Cooper attended thePeace to Prosperity conference in Bahrain.[13]
Newsweek/Daily Beast lists Rabbi Cooper among the “50 Most Influential Rabbis in the United States".[14]
Rabbi Cooper was the 2022-2023 vice-chairman, then the 2023-2024 chairman of theU.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). On the day of his last election, he declared: "USCIRF has long amplified the voices of people around the world whose governments seek to silence and persecute them for expressing the religion of their choice, or for choosing not to practice any religion at all".[15]
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