Lopatin is a graduate of the
Maimonides School and received a B.A. in International Relations and
Islamic Studies from
Boston University. In 1989, he was awarded a
Master of Philosophy from the
University of Oxford in Medieval Arabic Thought. He has also done doctoral work at Oxford on
Islamic fundamentalist attitudes toward Jews, authoring a chapter on
Muslim–Jewish relations entitled "The
Uncircumcised Jewish Heart (in Islamic and
Qur'anic Thought)." Lopatin's academic honors include being a Rhodes Scholar, a
Wexner Fellow, a
Truman Scholar, and a Boston University Trustee Scholar. He is a member of
Phi Beta Kappa. He received
rabbinic ordination (
semikhah) from both
Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of
Yeshiva University in
New York City in 1996 and Rabbi
Aharon Soloveichik. Lopatin also received honorary
semikhah from
Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT) in 2002. Lopatin was the spiritual leader of
Anshe Sholom B'nai Israel, a synagogue in
Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood. He and his wife Rachel were founders of the multi-denominational
Chicago Jewish Day School. In 2006, during the political battle over the Chicago City Council ban on the sale of
foie gras, Lopatin was widely quoted supporting the ban on the grounds that the
Torah prohibits
cruelty to animals, saying: "Chopped liver is good, but foie gras is bad." In 2009, Lopatin proposed plans for a group of 200 families to
immigrate to Israel and settle in the
Negev. The plan was postponed indefinitely due to a serious illness in the Lopatin family. In February 2012, Lopatin participated in an Indonesia
Interfaith Middle East Peace Tour. Five rabbis, four
Christian clergy, and three American Muslim clerics traveled through Indonesia (meeting with 12 Indonesian Muslim clerics),
Dubai,
Jerusalem,
Ramallah, and
Washington, D.C. Lopatin made blog posts about the journey on the website Morethodoxy.org. On August 30, 2012, YCT's rabbinical school announced that Lopatin would succeed Rabbi
Avi Weiss, its founder, as president of the organization. In August 2017, Lopatin announced that the 2017–2018 academic year would be his last as president of YCT. ==Affiliations==