Rabbi Jacobs is Co-Founder, Director and a Senior Lecturer at Machon Yaakov. Originally from Ocala, Florida, Rabbi Jacobs was until 2003 a senior managing director at JP Morgan, where he oversaw global stock research on telecommunications and provided strategic advice on some of the largest mergers in media/telecom history. Prior to that, he was a partner at Sanford Bernstein & Co., and was three times elected to the Institutional Investor All-American Analyst team. He acted as a frequent commentator on network television and in leading newspapers and magazines, and testified several times before the U.S. Congress. His credits include nominations for both the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism and the Emmy Award. More recently, Rabbi Jacobs co-authored a book with Rabbi Lynn titled Not A Partnership: Why We Keep Getting Marriage Wrong and How We Can Get It Right. Rabbi Jacobs holds an MS in Journalism from Columbia University (1985) and a BA in History from Northwestern University. Rabbi Jacobs and his family moved to Israel in 2003 to pursue full-time his interest in studying and teaching Jewish law, philosophy, and business ethics.
Rabbi Lynn is Dean of Students, Mashgiach (Spiritual Advisor), and a Senior Lecturer at Machon Yaakov. Originally from Palm Beach, Florida, he graduated as valedictorian from the University of Colorado at Boulder, College of Architecture, with Phi Beta Kappa honors. An avid athlete, he served as captain of the US National & World Duathlon team, as well as competing and finishing the Ironman Triathlon competition. He has a Masters in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, a Doctorate in Human and Organizational Psychology, and is a believer that true personal greatness results from understanding and building one’s strengths. He is also an executive coach, an author and the founder and director of Greatness Within Seminars, a successful approach to personal growth. Rabbi Lynn currently lives in Jerusalem with his family.
RABBI SHMUEL LYNN
Meor Manhattan started as one of Rabbi Lynn’s visions of what could be. After over a decade at the helm of one of Meor’s first and most vibrant campuses, he realized that if Meor did not evolve to galvanize its thousands of alumni that were living in NYC, it would be missing a historic opportunity to impact American Jewry. For years, Rabbi Lynn would make trips up from Philly to keep his former students from the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) connected to what had turned them onto Judaism in college. The time had come to help this network become the thriving community it is today. Under his guidance and inspired by his out-of-any-box-you’ve-ever-encountered creativity, we have built a full ecosystem of communal learning opportunities and social meeting points for young Jews of New York to mature and become the young leaders that we need to lead the way forward.
Rabbi Lynn served for 12 years as Executive Director of Meor at Penn, where he continues to teach regularly. The Maimonides Leaders Fellowship, his flagship program there, is now available at more than 50 campuses throughout North America. The Israel and Poland trips he pioneered in his early years at Penn have become national entities, receiving generous support from foundations and Israeli government initiatives with thousands of alumni.
Before coming to Penn, Rabbi Lynn lived in Israel for nine years. He studied Torah, Jewish philosophy, and Talmudic law at the renowned Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem, the largest yeshiva in Israel. Not having taken the most typical track to the Mir Yeshiva, Rabbi Lynn first graduated from Duke University, and then went on to the Tisch Film School at NYU, later spending several years working as a writer in Los Angeles. He was born in New York City, and is happy to be back, but he grew up in sunny Palm Beach, Florida.
RABBI JONATHAN TAUB
Rabbi Taub was born and raised in London, England. He studied economics at Cambridge University where he obtained a masters degree, and subsequently worked as a chartered accountant. He pursued his Torah studies in the Mir Yeshivah and in the Kollel of Yeshivas Merkaz HaTorah. Rabbi Taub has been teaching in yeshivot in Israel for over twenty-five years, and is currently lecturing in a number of yeshivas and women’s seminaries. Together with Rabbi Yisroel Shaw, he translated and annotated the popular Malbim Haggadah, and subsequently the Malbim Esther. Rabbi Taub has a deep appreciation for the Malbim’s style and close textual analysis, and tries to incorporate this into his teaching. Rabbi Taub is noted for his energy and excitement, aiming to reveal the “wow” in Torah. He is also an enthusiastic hiker, squash player, and enjoys writing humorous songs. He lives in Har Nof, Jerusalem with his wife and family.
RABBI DR. AKIVA TATZ
Rabbi Dr. Akiva Tatz was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He studied medicine at the University of Witwatersrand. He spent a year in St. Louis, Missouri, as an American Field Service Scholar and subsequently returned there for elective work in internal medicine at Washington University.
Rabbi Tatz subsequently moved to Israel where he practised both in hospital and general medicine in Jerusalem, as well as engaging in Yeshiva study.
After practising medicine and studying in Yeshiva concurrently for some time, Rabbi Tatz undertook a number of years of Talmudic study and later teaching in Jewish thought and medical ethics in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Dr. Tatz founded the Jerusalem Medical Ethics Forum, of which he is Director, for the purpose of teaching and promoting knowledge of Jewish medical ethics internationally. He is the author of the textbook Dangerous Disease and Dangerous Therapy in Jewish Medical Ethics – Principles and Practice.
He has written a number of books on the subject of Jewish thought and philosophy: Anatomy of a Search, which documents the process of transition from secular to observant lifestyles among modern Jews, Worldmask, The Thinking Jewish Teenager’s Guide to Life, Living Inspired, Will, Freedom and Destiny, and most recently, As Dawn Ends the Night.
Rabbi Tatz is the co-author of Reb Simcha Speaks (with Yaacov Branfman) and Letters to a Buddhist Jew (with David Gottlieb). His work has been translated into Spanish, Russian, French, Portuguese, Italian and Hebrew.
He currently lectures on Jewish Thought and Medical Ethics at the Jewish Learning Exchange in London where he has been based for more than 20 years. He is also a regular speaker for Olami.
RABBI GIDON SHOSHAN
Rabbi Gidon Shoshan teaches Hasidic thought, Chumash, and Personal Development workshops at Machon Yaakov. Additionally, Rabbi Shoshan is the Deputy Regional Director of North America and the UK for Olami -- a community of organizations dedicated to Jewish education and Jewish experiences for students and young professionals around the world -- and an adjunct professor of Jewish Studies at Touro College in Jerusalem. Rabbi Shoshan's teachings and perspectives are shaped by a tapestry of influences and experiences that include 25 years in Israel, study in the world's top yeshivas, and Master's degrees in Secondary Education from Yeshiva University and Developmental Psychology from Harvard, where he was won the Harvard Leadership in Education Award in 2012. He is an avid baseball fan, an eager conversationalist, a former ice cream vendor at Wrigley Field, and a curious student of Torah, Jewish history, and contemporary Jewish life. Rabbi Shoshan's classes at Legacy Retreats probe the depths of classical and Hasidic Jewish thought and bring depth, meaning, and mysticism to the practices of Jewish life.