Michael Edwards Feinberg
Revson Fellow 2004-2005
Executive Director
Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition
Michael Feinberg is a Reconstructionist (progressive) rabbi and educator, and has been an activist in social change movements in the US, Britain and Israel for over twenty-five years. He has worked at the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, and has served as a congregational rabbi in London, England. Since 1997, he has been Executive Director of the Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition, an interfaith worker rights and economic justice advocacy organization in New York City. He currently sits on the boards of several organizations, including Rural and Migrant Ministry, and the Religious Coalition against Police Brutality. Over the years, he has been a member of human rights and peace-making delegations to the Middle East, Central America, Eastern Europe, and to the maquiladoras on the Mexican/US border. He lives in Manhattan, on the Upper West Side. Rabbi Feinberg is a graduate of Cornell University, and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, as well as an interdisciplinary program in Refugee Studies at Oxford University. As a Revson Fellow, he worked to enhance his work as an advocate and organizer, studying the history, theory, and practice of international human rights.
(The Revson Fellow’s biography that appears above was last updated in 2003. Revson Fellows may update their biographies on this site by sending email to: revson@columbia.edu)
Courses, camaraderie, community–the fellowship provided all three in an engaging fashion. I thought as a mid-career professional I would feel out of synch with the students but their perspectives challenged me and the professors, the books I would have never read on my own and the guest speakers refreshed and enlivened my thinking and work practices. The fellowship felt like a sabbatical–only it took place on-campus.
