Eric J. Greenberg, Director of United Nations Relations and Strategic Partnerships

January 10, 2022

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is pleased to announce that Rabbi Eric J. Greenberg DHL has joined the center as Director of United Nations Relations and Strategic Partnerships.

Greenberg will spearhead the Center’s activities at the UN to defend and promote the rights of the Jewish people and the State of Israel, particularly with regards to concerns over increasing Holocaust denial, antisemitism and anti-Zionism around the globe.

“With his great accomplishments in the fields of communications, multifaith relations, government relations and Jewish communal work, we are thrilled Eric is joining us at this time of growing concern for Israel and the Jewish people,’’ said SWC Founder Rabbi Marvin Heir.  

Greenberg was the longtime national director of Outreach and Interfaith Affairs for the Anti-Defamation League where he developed and maintained strategic partnerships with a wide range of organizations and faith leaders including Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist and Zoroastrian.  He held meetings with three Roman Catholic Popes – Popes Francis, Benedict XVI and John Paul II.

He most recently served as Special Advisor on Community Outreach Faith-Based Initiatives to New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli. Previously he was Chief of Staff and Director of Communications & Government Relations at Columbia University’s Earth Institute National Center for Disaster Preparedness.  

Greenberg was the founding Director of Communications, Programs and Multifaith Relations for the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees, the nation’s largest coalition of faith-based groups assisting Syrian refugees.

He represented world Jewish officials at a global meeting with Eastern Orthodox Christian officials in Thessaloniki, Greece, presenting a groundbreaking paper on the state of Jewish-Eastern Orthodox relations. He wrote the official Jewish contribution to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop’s catechetical study marking the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the historic 1965 Vatican document that rejects anti-Semitism and calls for positive dialogue between Catholics and Jews.  He was a participant at Pope Benedict’s 2011 world gathering of religious leaders in Assisi and was invited to Oberammergau, Germany in 2010 as a Jewish advisor to work with the German director and producer to eliminate anti-Jewish elements in the world’s most famous Passion Play.

Greenberg conceived and directed ADL’s Interfaith Coalition on Mosques, an alliance of noted religious leaders uniting to protect the rights of American Muslims from religious discrimination. He was a featured presenter at the 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religions global conference in Salt Lake City and was invited back to present at the worldwide body’s virtual global conference in October 2021.
 
Greenberg has written extensively on Jewish, Israel and multifaith issues for Religion News Service, the Washington Post, the Huffington Post and has been quoted in newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Newsweek and the NY Daily News.

He is co-editor of “The Saint for Shalom: How Pope John Paul II Transformed Catholic-Jewish Relations” (Herder 2011) which in a rare occurrence, was endorsed by Pope Benedict. He served as a religion consultant on major motion pictures including Jerusalem IMAX (2013) and The Bible.

Greenberg conceived, “Outside the Bible,” an unprecedented 3-volume set of ancient Jewish writings related to Scripture that for the first time in history brings together into a single collection, portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuagint, the biblical Apocrypha, and Pseudepigrapha, and the writings of Philo of Alexandria and Josephus. (Jewish Publication Society, 2013)

He is editor of “Transforming the Catholic-Jewish Relationship: Looking Back, Looking Ahead Nostra Aetate on its 40th Anniversary” (ADL Press, 2005 Second Edition) and was a contributing writer to “Toward the Future: Essays on Catholic-Jewish Relations, In Memory of Rabbi Leon Klenicki” (Paulist Press, 2013)
 
Previously he was a national award-winning newspaper reporter and editor focusing on investigations, environment, and religion.  He has been honored multiple times by such national journalism organizations as Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE), the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the Washington Journalism Center, the American Jewish Press Association (AJPA), the New York State Press Association (NYPA), and New York City’s Deadline Club.
 
In May 2022 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Human Letters from the State University of New York. He was previously awarded two academic fellowships by the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism for environmental and religion reporting and was inducted into the Communications Hall of Fame at the State University College at Buffalo. He attended graduate school at the University of Maryland College of Journalism, received rabbinic ordination in 2010 and serves on the Board of Governors of the New York Board of Rabbis, the largest interdenominational rabbinic group in the world. He received a fellowship in Holocaust and Genocide Studies from the Jan Karski Institute for Holocaust Education. He is also a member of the New York State Chaplains Task Force (NYCTF) and is on the advisory at the Center for Interreligious Understanding (CIU).
 
In addition, Greenberg was a contributing writer/reporter to “Tune In: The Beatles, All These Years, Vol. 1, the New York Times bestseller by Mark Lewisohn, the world’s foremost authority on The Beatles (Crown, 2016) and a contributing writer/reporter, for “Linda McCartney: A Portrait” (Renaissance Books, 2001.  He is also a published singer/songwriter and has co-written a song with legendary Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot.