Rabbi Arthur Schneier

Dean and Founder, Park East Day School
Senior Rabbi, Park East Synagogue

Rabbi Arthur Schneier has since 1962 been the spiritual leader of Park East Synagogue, a historic landmark in New York City.  As Senior Rabbi he has brought local, national and international recognition to Park East Synagogue through his more than four decades of dedication to nurturing and cultivating Jewish life in New York, in Israel and around the globe.

More than 40 years ago he founded the Rabbi Arthur Schneier Park East Day School, a unique Early Childhood through Grade 8 Jewish Day School based on a combined general academic and Jewish studies curriculum, with a decidedly global focus.

His driving commitment to renew Jewish life globally has stretched from his pioneering campaign for Soviet Jewry in the 1960s to the recent revitalization of Jewish cantorial music in New York by bringing, in September 2005, Cantor Yitzhak Meir Helfgot of Jerusalem to Park East Synagogue as its Chief Cantor.

Rabbi Schneier has also worked for religious freedom and tolerance throughout the world as founder and president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation (1965).  A recipient of the U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal, 2001, he was cited as "a Holocaust survivor who has devoted a lifetime to overcoming forces of hatred and intolerance and set an inspiring example of spiritual leadership by encouraging interfaith dialogue and intercultural understanding and promoting the cause of religious freedom around the world."  He was also a U.S. Alternate Representative to the U.N. General Assembly and is an Ambassador to the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations.

He is the recipient of eleven honorary doctorates from U.S. and foreign universities.  His alma mater, Yeshiva University, honored him by establishing the Rabbi Arthur Schneier Center for International Affairs in 2004.  Rabbi Schneier is a Board member of the American Joint Distribution Committee; Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society; New York Board of Rabbis; and Honorary Chairman, World Jewish Congress, American Section and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Committee on Conscience; and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations.

Born in Vienna, Austria, March 20, 1930, Rabbi Schneier lived under Nazi occupation in Budapest during World War II and arrived in the United States in 1947.  He is married to Elisabeth Nordmann Schneier.