Rabbi Avi Weiss is the founding rabbi of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale - the Bayit, a congregation of 850 families in Bronx, New York. He is also the founder of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School for men and Yeshivat Maharat for women. He is also the co-founder of the International Rabbinic Fellowship (IRF).

Rav Avi served as National Chairman of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) from 1982 to 1991 and subsequently as the National President of AMCHA – the Coalition for Jewish Concerns, raising a voice of moral conscience on behalf of the Jewish people and humankind throughout the world.

He is the author of Women at Prayer: A Halakhic Analysis of Women’s Prayer Groups, Spiritual Activism: A Jewish Guide to Leadership and Repairing the world, Open Up the Iron Door: Memoirs of a Soviet Jewry Activist and his most recent book, Journey to Open Orthodoxy, was published last year.