Today’s topic on "The Advocates" is “Religion, the Secular World, and The Impact of Mysticism!” Our guests today are Rabbis Lester Bronstein, Robert Rothman and Michael Landsberg who represents the Jewish City of Tsfat or Safed, the historic center of Jewish mysticism, known as the Kaballah.

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Rabbi Lester Bronstein has served Bet Am Shalom Synagogue in White Plains since 1989.  He is past president of the Westchester Board of Rabbis.  For many years he was a lecturer in Rabbinics in the Cantorial School of Hebrew Union College in New York.  He sings with Beged Kefet, a charity-based Jewish musical group. Lester was born in Houston and educated at Yale, BU and the Hebrew Union College and writes and teaches about the revitalization of Jewish life in America, based on ancient models of practice.
 
Rabbi Robert Rothman served the Community Synagogue of Rye, NY from 1966 thru 1997 as its religious leader, and is currently serving there as the Rabbi Emeritus. He is a graduate of Yeshiva University and was ordained from the Hebrew Union College. He is the older of numerous degrees including a Ph.D. in Group Psychotherapy. H e has also served as an Adjunct Professor at Westchester Community College, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Touro College, Marymount College He was a Chaplain serving with the Navy and the US Marine Corps from 1957 thru 1980 and has served in that role with local police departments and other offices. He created the Interfaith Pulpit Exchange and has had a long career as a lecturer. He has been honored numerous times and has been the author of forty published articles and poems.

Our last guest is Mr. Michael Landsberg who is the Executive Director of the NN Tsfat Fund of North America. This fund’s mission is dedicated to supporting and enhancing Tsfat (Safed), Israel, a unique city and center of Jewish religious life, which was a vibrant community of scholars in the 16th Century CE, and in its golden age was considered the most important and influential spiritual center in the world. Mr. Landsberg has degrees from Thomas Edison University and Ben Gurion University. He has spent over twenty years of progressive executive management in the not for profit arena with special focus on human resources, training, education, youth development and fundraising.