About Rabbi Minich

Binyamin Daniel Minich was born in 1987, in Kerch, Crimea, Soviet Union and grew up in the Progressive Jewish community of Kerch. He is a descendant of a Crimean Jewish (Kırımçak) family, which lived in Crimea for at least 500 years.

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In 2002, at the age of 15, he made aliyah through Naale project and 3 years after graduated high school yeshiva Migdal Ohr, led by Rabbi Haim Bar On (under presidency of Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman).

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After his military service at the IDF, Benny started studying Jewish thought and psychology at the University of Haifa. As he achieved BA degree in Haifa, he began studying at the Israeli Rabbinic program at the Taube family campus of the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institue of Religion in Jerusalem. He achieved his ordination from Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss in November 2019.

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Rabbi Minich serves in Israel and abroad in Hebrew, English, Ukrainian and Russian. He leads 'Daniel' congregation in Jaffa and works at Daniel Centers for Progressive Judaism in Tel Aviv. He researches political philosophy, Jewish homiletics (darshanut) and liturgy and is a PhD student at the Department of Jewish thought of Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan. He is also a rabbinic fellow of Beit Midrash Har'el in Jerusalem.

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Rabbi Binyamin Minich is a proud member of the Israeli Council of Progressive Rabbis (MARAM; served at its board in the years 2022-24); the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) and the European Rabbinical Association (ERA).

He volunteers on Limmud FSU Israel's organizational committee and on the board of Crimean Jews Association in Israel.

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Benny lives in Kfar Saba with his wife, Dr. Elena Minich, their two sons - Hadar Yosef and Levi Moshe, and daughter - Haleli Yerushalaim.

Besides his work, his hobbies are reading, hiking, yoga, playing piano and guitar, studying languages and math, as well as aikido (四級).