List of Baalei teshuva

This article lists some notable Baalei Teshuva, Jews who may or may not have been raised in Orthodox Jewish households but at one time did not practice Orthodox Judaism and then later took up or returned to Orthodox practices.

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.
  • Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Nobel Prize laureate writer and was one of the central figures of modern Hebrew fiction
  • Shalom Arush, Israeli Breslover rabbi spreading the teachings of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov among Sephardic Jews
  • Ehud Banai, Israeli singer and songwriter
  • Eviatar Banai, Israeli musician, singer, and songwriter
  • Yehuda Barkan, Israeli actor, film producer, film director and screenwriter
  • Jason Bedrick, former member of the New Hampshire state legislature, and the first Orthodox Jew to hold elective office in New Hampshire
  • Nathan Birnbaum, Austrian writer and journalist of the early 1900s, often called the first Baal Teshuva of modern times.
  • Ashley Blaker, English TV producer, comedian[1]
  • Julia Blum, singer-songwriter and actress
  • Herman Branover, Russian-Israel scientist who became a leading Chabad follower.
  • Sruli Broocker, American rabbi and award-winning performing artist and animator[2][3]
  • Rama Burshtein, award-winning American-Israeli filmmaker
  • Robert A. Baruch Bush, graduate of Harvard and Stanford and a professor at Hofstra University
  • Alex Clare, English popular musician
  • David Cohen, rabbi, Talmudist, philosopher, and Kabbalist
  • Effi Eitam, Israeli politician and head of the Ahi faction of the National Union, for whom he is a member of the Knesset. He is also a former leader of the National Religious Party.
  • Tzvi Fishman, Israel-based author, US-raised, former Hollywood screenwriter[4]
  • Isaac Aboab da Fonseca, rabbi, scholar, kabbalist and writer
  • Jamie Geller, American cookbook author and kosher food writer
  • Yitzchak Ginsburgh, rabbi
  • Allegra Goodman, American author based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she graduated from Stanford and Harvard
  • Dovid Gottlieb, rabbi and a senior faculty member at Ohr Somayach in Jerusalem he is a former professor of analytical philosophy at Johns Hopkins University
  • Velvl Greene, Canadian–American–Israeli scientist and academic
  • Jacob Israël de Haan, Dutch Jewish literary writer and journalist
  • Waldemar Haffkine, bacteriologist who worked in India. He was the first microbiologist who developed and used vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague[5]
  • Rafael Halperin, prominent Israeli Orthodox Jewish businessman, author of religious books and an encyclopedia, most notable for his being a former pro wrestler that worked for Vince McMahon Sr.'s Capitol Wrestling in the 1950s
  • Steven Hill, American film and television actor
  • Peter Himmelman, singer-songwriter from Minnesota, who formerly played in the band Sussman Lawrence
  • Brad Hirschfield, rabbi
  • Rick Hodes, doctor[6]
  • Eliezer ben Hurcanus, one of the most prominent rabbis of 1st and 2nd centuries[7]
  • David Kazhdan, former professor at Harvard and currently a mathematics professor at Hebrew University, specializing in representation theory
  • Ephraim Kholmyansky, refusenik, activist in the Jewish revival movement in Russia, teacher of Hebrew
  • Aya Koren, Israeli actor
  • Resh Lakish, sage in the time of the Talmud, despite being in his early youth a bandit and gladiator. He became one of the most prominent rabbis of the 2nd to 3rd century, the other being his brother-in-law and opponent, Yochanan bar Nafcha.
  • Ruth Lawrence-Neimark, British mathematics prodigy who became a maths professor at Hebrew University, specialising in topology[8]
  • Benny Lévy, philosopher, political activist and author. A political figure of May 1968 in France, he has been the disciple and last personal secretary of Jean-Paul Sartre from 1974 to 1980. Along with him, he helped found the French newspaper Libération in 1972.
  • Warren Lewis, a South African former professional association football player.[9]
  • Ludwig Lewisohn, American Jewish critic, novelist, translator, non-Fiction author, and biographer
  • Hendel Lieberman
  • David Mamet, American author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and film director
  • Matisyahu, American reggae musician, known for blending traditional Jewish themes with Reggae, rock and hip hop sounds.
  • Michael Medved, American radio host, author, conservative political commentator, and film critic.
  • Yosef Mendelevitch, refusenik who later became a rabbi
  • Yaakov Menken, rabbi and author, founder, and director of Project Genesis and co-founder of the Cross-Currents blog
  • Yosef Mizrachi, Israeli American Haredi rabbi[10]
  • Ronald Perelman, American investor who made his fortune buying beleaguered corporations and re-selling them later for enormous profits. Once the richest man in America, he is the 26th richest American, and 87th richest person in the world with an estimated wealth of US$11.5 billion.
  • Yosi Piamenta, guitar player, of the internationally acclaimed Piamenta Band
  • Adi Ran, Israeli singer, musician, lyricist and composer who innovated a new music genre called Hasidic Underground (also known as Alternative Hasidic)
  • Avri Ran, businessman
  • Shuli Rand, Israeli film actor and singer. He is a Haredi Jew and is best known in the English-speaking world for his role as the protagonist in Ushpizin (2004)
  • Aharon Razel, Israeli musician
  • Yonatan Razel, singer, writer, composer, musical arranger, and conductor
  • Eliyahu Rips, Israeli mathematician known for his research in geometric group theory, he is a member of the Department of Mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Rips received the Erdős prize from the Israel Mathematical Society in 1979 and was a sectional speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1994
  • Shlomo Riskin, rabbi and author
  • Avichai Rontzki, former Chief Military Rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces.
  • Jonathan Rosenblum, journalist who writes columns for The Jerusalem Post, Baltimore Jewish Times, Maariv, Jewish Action, The Jewish Observer, Hamodia, Yated Ne'eman, and others. He is also the director, spokesperson, and founder of Jewish Media Resources, an organization which attempts to clarify journalists' understanding of Haredi Jewish society.
  • Franz Rosenzweig, Jewish theologian and philosopher
Dmitry Salita

Footnotes
  1. https://jewinthecity.com/2017/05/meet-the-bbc-producer-who-became-a-haredi-comedian/
  2. https://jewinthecity.com/2016/08/how-gene-wilders-the-frisco-kid-inspired-me-to-become-hasidic/
  3. https://jewinthecity.com/author/sruli-broocker/
  4. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Message.aspx/2151
  5. Hanhart J.Haffkine, une esquisse : biographie intellectuelle et analytique de Waldemar Mordekhaï Haffkine. http://serval.unil.ch/unilBibSearch/search.htm;jsessionid=7282E7F3909F9CE1119F67011C5E0A41
  6. http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/05/04/2394657/jewish-doctor-in-ethiopia-hailed-in-new-book-film
  7. Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbat 127b
  8. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/perils-faced-by-a-prodigy-702525
  9. Talshir, Uri. "For religious former South Africa captain, there is life after soccer". Ha'aretz. Retrieved 21 July 2009.
  10. Sarafraz, Beth (26 May 2017). "The Saga of Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi". The Jewish Press. Retrieved 9 March 2020.
  11. "What Is a Baal Teshuvah?". www.chabad.org. Retrieved 27 May 2018.
  12. http://www.jpost.com/Arts-and-Culture/Music/A-Foreigner-fan-in-Mea-Shearim-346256
  13. https://forward.com/culture/347860/whats-behind-the-boom-in-orthodox-women-singers/
  14. Swissa, Eran (4 October 2019). "In 10 Years, the Muslim Brotherhood Will Dictate the Tone". Israel Hayom. Retrieved 9 March 2020.
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