Lori Palatnik

Biography

Palatnik was born into a Conservative Jewish family in Toronto, Canada. She majored in communications at the University of Windsor and earned a special degree in advertising. She began her career in radio copywriting.

In 1985 she was a participant on the first Jerusalem Fellowships trip to Israel, and her experience was so positive that she decided to take time off to learn more about Judaism. She studied for a year at the EYAHT and Neve Yerushalayim colleges for advanced Jewish learning in Jerusalem. She returned briefly to Toronto for a writing job for Aish HaTorah, and afterward returned to Israel, where she met her husband, Yaakov Palatnik, a native of Chicago. and became an Orthodox Jewish outreach educator, public speaker, and author. They have five children.

They were the founding rabbi and rebbetzin of Toronto's Village Shul, a family synagogue in Forest Hill, Toronto, which they led for 11 years. During that time, Lori also hosted The Jewish Journal, a Toronto television show.

The Palatniks next moved to Denver, Colorado, where for the next four years he worked with Aish Denver and she was educational and program director for the Aish-Ahavas Yisrael project. The couple also co-hosted a weekly Denver radio show called The Palatniks on 630-KHOW.

In 2005, the Palatniks relocated to Washington, D.C., where Rabbi Palatnik became executive director of Aish Washington, D.C. In 2008 Lori was one of eight founders of the Jewish Women's Renaissance Project, an outreach effort dubbed "Birthright for Women". As of 2016, JWRP has brought more than 10,000 women to Israel on a free, 8-day tour and learn program; participants only pay for their airfare. A 2010 poll of tour participants revealed that "76 per cent increased their attendance at Jewish services, 90.3 per cent increased their Jewish learning, and 75.4 per cent increased their observance of Shabbat" after participating in the tour.

Palatnik appears on her own weekly video blog, Lori Almost Live, on the website of Aish.com, addressing a wide range of Jewish and Torah themes, including the soul and the afterlife, Jewish views on marriage, Torah values, and current events.

She is a popular speaker for women's groups and Jewish conferences in North America, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Central America, South America and Israel.

In addition to her books, she has contributed to the Aish HaTorah anthology, Heaven on Earth and Jewish Women Speak about Jewish Matters.

Kidney donor

In 2008, Palatnik revealed that she had donated one of her kidneys to a stranger. She explained her rationale in an article on Aish.com, in a live video performance, and in speeches covered by local press.

Honors

In 2010, she was a semi-finalist for the Jewish Community Heroes award presented by the Jewish Federations of North America. She received 25,208 online votes out of 311,265 votes cast.

In 2013 she was recognized as one of the nation's "Ten Women to Watch" by Jewish Women International.

Her 2002 book, Gossip: Ten Pathways to Eliminate It from Your Life and Transform Your Soul (co-authored with Bob Burg) was featured on the Dr. Laura show as a recommended book.

In 2015 Hadassah added her to the list of "Most Outstanding Jewish American Women of Our Time"