David Wolpe

David J. Wolpe (born September 19, 1958) is an American rabbi. He is Visiting Scholar at Harvard Divinity School and the Max Webb Emeritus Rabbi of Sinai Temple. He previously taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, Hunter College, and UCLA. Wolpe was named the most influential Rabbi in America by Newsweek in 2012, and among the 500 most influential Angelinos in 2016 and 2018. Wolpe now serves as the Inaugural rabbinic fellow for the ADL, and a Senior Advisor for the Maimonides Fund. Wolpe was appointed and then resigned from the Harvard Antisemitism advisory committee in Dec. 2023, in a post that went viral with over 7.5 million views on "X" https://twitter.com/RabbiWolpe/status/1732847411175796747?lang=en. He subsequently appeared widely exploring antisemitism on podcasts like Sam Harris "Making Sense" among many others, and was widely quoted in the news discussing the situation and his decision.

Wolpe became the focus of international controversy in 2001 when he gave a Passover sermon that questioned the historicity of the Exodus from Egypt. In 2023, he attracted controversy yet again, this time for his negative depiction of non-monotheistic religions in an article published in The Atlantic.

Ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York in 1987, Wolpe is a leader in Conservative Judaism.