Editor’s note: At press time, The Jewish Link’s editor Elizabeth Kratz spoke with Rabbi Moshe Hauer, who has been named by the Orthodox Union as its new executive vice president. This interview will appear online and in print in Jewish Link publications next week.
Rabbi Moshe Hauer, the senior rabbi of Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion Congregation in Baltimore, will become the executive vice president of the Orthodox Union (OU), the nation’s oldest and largest umbrella organization for the North American Orthodox Jewish community, following the retirement of Allen Fagin later this year.
Rabbi Hauer has built his synagogue into one of the most dynamic centers for prayer and learning in Baltimore during a 25-year career. He is active in local communal leadership in many areas, with an emphasis on education, children at risk and social service organizations serving the Jewish community. His commitment to the OU has been longstanding, delivering frequent keynotes and lectures at major OU events and conferences. He has been a leading source of rabbinic guidance to both OU lay and professional leadership and to other pulpit rabbis around the country.
Fagin notified the OU’s executive committee last year that he planned to retire in the Fall of 2020. The committee then created a comprehensive succession planning process that led to the conclusion that the best direction for the OU going forward was to bifurcate the professional leadership role. As a result, the next executive vice president would be a rabbinic leader to lead its communal-oriented efforts and to serve as the professional religious and policy leader of the organization. A second person will serve as the senior professional officer, functioning like a chief executive officer. A search is underway for an experienced business executive to fill that position.
“Rabbi Hauer is one of North America’s foremost contemporary Torah thinkers and rabbinic leaders who is most qualified to be our next executive vice president in our new formulation. His leadership will be key to the continuation of the OU’s increasing role in meeting the significant material and spiritual challenges facing the Orthodox community and elevating its religious experience by ensuring the accessibility of Torah knowledge and halachic observance to the broadest range of the American Jewish community,” said Orthodox Union President Moishe Bane.
“In 2014, the lay leadership of the OU urged Allen Fagin, then a lay leader himself, to assume the EVP role. He agreed to accommodate the request albeit for only a brief period of time but has generously extended his tenure for more than six years,” said Bane. “Allen has served as a transformative professional leader, growing the organization in creative and impactful ways. His vision has not only significantly expanded the OU’s reach and effectiveness, but also under his guidance and leadership the OU has evolved into an impressively professional and disciplined institution. For many years to come, successors to Allen will be the beneficiaries of his incredible achievements.”
“I am humbled by the opportunity to work with the exceptional lay and professional leadership of the OU and our community’s synagogues in this new capacity. I look forward to working with Allen through this transition and developing a vision and specific plans later in the year,” said Rabbi Hauer.
“The past five plus years have been tremendously fulfilling. We were able to double the OU budget and significantly expand our programs and services in areas of key communal needs that have positively affected every corner of the Orthodox community. We have an outstanding team of professionals and lay leaders who give of themselves daily to help klal Yisroel and I am enormously grateful for their help and support. I am so pleased that Rabbi Hauer has been chosen for this new role and I am confident he will be an outstanding leader for the organization,” said Fagin.
In addition to his synagogue, Rabbi Hauer serves as a trustee of The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore and is a member of the national council of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). He is a member of the Rabbinical Council-Vaad HaRabbonim of Baltimore and the Rabbinical Council of America. Rabbi Hauer received his rabbinic ordination, doctor of Talmudic law and bachelor of Talmud law degrees from Ner Israel in Baltimore. He received a master’s of science degree from the Whiting School of Engineering of Johns Hopkins University.
