Burton Visotzky

In 2011, as a result of a naming gift, Visotzky became director of the Milstein Center for Interreligious Dialogue at JTS. He also serves as Louis Stein Director of the Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies, charged with programming on public policy. Rabbi Visotzky is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Visotzky was appointed as director of the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 2010. His work as director of the Finkelstein Institute has focused on Muslim-Jewish-Christian dialogue. In October 2010, Visotzky and Arnold Eisen organized a group of prominent Muslim and Jewish scholars and leaders, joined by the heads of several Christian seminaries, to meet at JTS for two days for a workshop comparing the situations of Islam and Judaism in America. In 2012 Visotzky was awarded the Goldziher Prize for his work in Jewish-Muslim relations.

Visotzky has been active in interfaith dialogue, including at a groundbreaking meeting of Muslims, Christians, Jews sponsored by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in Madrid in 2008. He also participated in interfaith dialogue in Doha, where he was in the first group of Jews invited by the emir of Qatar.

Visotzky joined the JTS faculty, teaching midrash, following his ordination in 1977. He also served as associate and acting dean of The Graduate School of JTS, and he was the founding rabbi of JTS's egalitarian worship service in the Women's League Seminary Synagogue. Visotzky was appointed as director of the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 2010.

Burton L. Visotzky (born 1951) is an American rabbi and scholar of midrash. He is the Appleman Professor of Midrash and Interreligious Studies, Emeritus at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS).