Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

Meshullam Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (August 28, 1924 – July 3, 2014), commonly called "Reb Zalman" (full Hebrew name: Meshullam Zalman Hiyya ben Chaya Gittel veShlomo HaCohen), was an American Rabbi, writer, and activist, and one of the founders of the Jewish Renewal movement and an innovator in ecumenical dialogue.

Born in Poland, Shachter-Shalomi was raised an Orthodox Jew in a variety of countries as his family repeatedly moved to evade increasing antisemitism in 1930s Europe. While awaiting a visa to the United States in an internment camp in Vichy France, Shachter-Shalomi met Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the later seventh Chabad rebbe. Becoming a Chabad rabbi in 1947, Shacheter-Shalomi took a deep interest in the spiritual practices of other faiths and immersed himself in the counter-culture of the 1960s. Eventually expelled from Chabad, he founded his own organisation, B'Nai Or (later P'Nai Or) and his attempts to innovate in Jewish prayer pioneered what became the chavurah and Jewish Renewal movements.

Employed as an academic in his later years, Schacter-Shalomi continued to work in interfaith dialogue and spreading hasidut, and in the 1990s was part of a group of four rabbis who travelled to Dharamsala, India, to advise the Dalai Lama on how to retain religious traditions in exile and prevent assimilation. A prolific author, Schacter-Shalomi published dozens of books on many topics including hasidut, ecstatic prayer, contemplative spirituality, environmental consciousness, and spiritual direction. Schacter-Shalomi died in 2014 and is buried in Boulder, Colorado. He was married four times and had eleven children.