Ari Zivotofsky
Ari Zivotofsky was born in NYC and grew up on Long Island. He attended the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County (HANC) for 10 years followed by an enlightening year in public school. He subsequently studied in Yeshivat Har Etzion (“The Gush”) for 2 years, where at the beginning of the second year he met Ari Greenspan over a kaporos chicken. Together they learned shechita and received kabalah from Rav Sasson Grady and co-signed by Rav Mesas, Rav Mordechai Eliyahu, and Rav Yosef Kafach. After a several year hiatus from formal yeshiva he returned to study for semicha at Yeshivat Derech Ayson (“Yeshiva of Far Rockaway”) for 3 years
He holds a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from The Cooper Union, an MA in math from Hofstra University (Hempstead, NY), an MEE in Electrical Engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT; Newark, NJ), and an MA in Jewish history from Revel graduate school of Yeshiva University (NY, NY). He holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University CWRU; Cleveland, OH).
He did a four year Post-doc at the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH; Bethesda, MD)
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He made aliyah with his wife and children in 2000 and currently lives in Beit Shemesh. Since making aliyah he has been teach in the Bar Ilan University Brain Science program. He has over 50 scientific peer-reviewed papers.
Over the last few years he have been a scholar-in-residence and lectured in numerous places alone and together with Ari Greenspan. Some of the places include: Los Angeles, San Antonio, Teaneck, Memphis, Stamford, White Plains, Queens, Ft. Lauderdale, Johanesbug, Melbourne.
He is widely published in such journals as: Tradition, Judaism, Jewish Observer, Le’eyla, Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society, Jewish Action, Tchumin, ha’Ma’ayan, BDD, Mishpacha, and numerous weekly Jewish papers, including a regular column in Jewish Action.
Together with Ari Greenspan he organized the highly successful halachik seudah in Yerushalayim, NY, and LA, and the series of mesorah conferences in NY and LA for the Orthodox Union.