About Me

Marc Gafni, also known as Mark Gafni, Marc Winiarz, Mordechai Winiarz, and Mordechai Winyarz, was born to Holocaust survivors in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.Marc Gafni was raised in Colombus, Ohio and educated at Modern-Orthodox yeshivas in the New York area. In the 1980s, while attending Yeshiva University, Gafni worked with Jewish Public School Youth, an organization providing Jewish social clubs in public schools. In 1988, Gafni also worked as a Rabbi in Boca Raton, Florida. After making aliya in the 1990s, Gafni served as rabbi of the West Bank settlement of Tzofim. When Gafni moved to Israel he hebraicized his name. "Winiarz" meaning "winemaker," is related to the Hebrew word "gefen" - grape, thus the name "Gafni". In the late nineties he opened the Bayit Chadash spiritual center in Jaffa. Gafni advocated bringing eros back into Jewish practice.



Marc Gafni was ordained as a rabbi by Shlomo Riskin of Efrat. He also received rabbinical certification from the Chief Rabbinate of the State of Israel, and from Rabbi Gershon Winkler. Riskin has since expressed his intent to withdraw his rabbinical ordination because Gafni went beyond the bounds of Orthodoxy; when Gafni heard of Riskin's wishes, he wrote a letter returning Riskin's semicha.



Marc Gafni also possesses a Ph.D from Oxford University.