vailsymposium

Rabbi Abraham Cooper is associate dean and director of Global Social Action for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading global Jewish human rights organization.

Cooper has been a longtime activist for Jewish and human rights causes on five continents. In 1977, he came to Los Angeles to help Rabbi Marvin Hier found the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Together with Hier, Cooper regularly meets with world leaders, including Pope Francis, presidents, and foreign ministers to defend the rights of the Jewish people, combat terrorism and promote multi-faith relations worldwide.

Cooper is an acknowledged expert on online hate and terrorism and has helped produce and present the SWC’s renowned traveling exhibitions at the Vatican, the UN, Knesset, US Congress, Tokyo, New Delhi, and Buenos Aires. He is a founder of the Global Forum on Anti-Semitism, and Newsweek ranked Rabbis Cooper and Hier as #8 among the 50 most influential rabbis in America. Cooper has worked extensively with Arab leaders in the Gulf States and witnessed the historic UAE/Bahrain/Israel Abraham Accords ceremony at the White House.

In 2023, Cooper was appointed Chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom which tracks violations of religious freedom in 28 nations around the world.

Cooper co-authored with Rev. Johnnie Moore, The Next Jihad, based on their interviews in Nigeria with scores of Christian survivors of deadly Islamist terrorist attacks. His op-eds appear in major US and Israeli outlets, in Asia and in the Arab News and Al-Arabiya.

Cooper received an honorary doctorate from Yeshiva University.