Uri Regev

Who is Uri Regev?

Uri Regev is a lawyer and rabbi of the Reform movement of Judaism in Israel, and an active civil rights and religious pluralism advocate. Currently he serves as the President and CEO of “Hiddush – For Freedom of Religion and Equality”, a trans-denominational nonprofit organization aimed at promoting religious freedom and equality in Israel, a partnership between Israeli Jews and World Jewry, founded in 2009.

Regev was born in Tel Aviv in 1951 to a secular family. As a child he had no interest in religion. His first contact with the Reform movement was in 1967, when he joined a student delegation to Jewish communities in the United States. After returning to Israel, he joined the small Reform youth movement.

Regev studied law at Tel Aviv University Law School and went on to practice law. In the late 1970s, he began studying at the Reform movement′s rabbinical school, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, where he was ordained in 1986. He served in the Israeli Defense Force as an assistant legal advisor in the Gaza Strip and Sinai and as military prosecutor for the Israeli Navy. He retired from military service with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

Regev has been executive director of the Israel Religious Action Center, the political arm of the Reform movement in Israel, and President of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz calls him “a charismatic figure who speaks eloquently and often sharply and has an impressive work output”, and credits him with changing the Reform Movement′s face in Israel and making IRAC the most active institution within the movement, turning it “into a factor that both the religious and political establishment cannot ignore”.