01 Sep RABBI SHMUEL SILBER NAMED OU EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT RABBI DR. JOSH JOSEPH TO SERVE AS CEO TWO LEADERS, ONE VISION FOR THE ORTHODOX UNION

When Rabbi Shmuel Silber steps into the role of executive vice president of the Orthodox Union this November, he will be assuming one of the most consequential rabbinic leadership positions in American Orthodox Jewish life.

But he will not be doing so alone.

As Rabbi Silber prepares to take on the OU’s EVP role in November, Rabbi Dr. Josh Joseph, who previously served as executive vice president and chief operating officer, will become the organization’s chief executive officer. The new leadership structure is designed to create clearly defined areas of responsibility, with Rabbi Silber focusing on Torah, public policy, hashkafic and halachic guidance, while Rabbi Joseph oversees the management, business, strategy, and professional operations of the OU.

In an exclusive interview with the Jewish Vues, Rabbi Silber spoke at length about his new role, his relationship with the late Rabbi Moshe Hauer, zt”l, his vision for the OU, the importance of Ahavas Yisrael and achdus, and his plans to spend his first months listening and learning.

Rabbi Joseph, in his own responses, offered insight into the new leadership structure, his relationship with Rabbi Silber, his memories of Rabbi Hauer, and his vision for where the OU can go in the years ahead.

Together, their comments provide a picture of an OU entering a new chapter while seeking to build on the tremendous foundation established by Rabbi Hauer.

Rabbi Silber does not see his new position simply as a new title, nor does he view himself as replacing the man who occupied the position before him.

Rabbi Moshe Hauer, zt”l, who served as the OU’s executive vice president from 2020 until his untimely passing last fall, was, in Rabbi Silber’s words, a “generational leader.” He was also Rabbi Silber’s close friend, mentor, and, in many ways, a guide to the responsibilities of communal leadership.

Rabbi Silber therefore approaches his new role with a combination of humility, reverence for the past, and an unmistakable sense of responsibility for the future.

“I am not filling Rabbi Hauer’s shoes,” Rabbi Silber says. “Rabbi Hauer’s shoes cannot be filled.”

What he hopes to do instead is continue the derech Rabbi Hauer established.

That distinction goes to the heart of Rabbi Silber’s approach to leadership. He does not speak primarily about power, prestige, or institutional authority. He speaks about Ahavas Yisrael, achdus, Torah, spiritual growth, and service to Klal Yisrael.

For more than two decades, Rabbi Silber has served as the rabbi of Suburban Orthodox Congregation Toras Chaim in Baltimore, transforming and growing a community into one of the city’s vibrant centers of Torah and communal life. He is the founder and dean of the Institute for Jewish Continuity, which provides contemporary Torah learning, incorporating Chassidic influences, to adults across a wide range of backgrounds and levels of observance.

His communal work has also extended beyond Baltimore. As founding rabbi of the Berger Towers community in Katamonim, Jerusalem, Rabbi Silber has been involved in providing rabbinic leadership and hashkafic direction to the community.

A musmach of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at Yeshiva University, Rabbi Silber also holds a master’s degree in secondary Jewish education from the Azrieli Graduate School. Over the course of his rabbinic career, he has had the privilege of learning from and building relationships with some of the leading Torah personalities of the contemporary Jewish world, including Rabbi Mordechai Willig, Rav Asher Weiss, Rabbi Aharon Feldman, Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer, Rabbi Boruch Neuberger, and others.

Now, after 23 years in Baltimore, Rabbi Silber is preparing to take his experience as a mara d’asra, educator, communal builder, and talmid chacham onto a national and international stage.

FROM EAST BRUNSWICK TO BALTIMORE
Rabbi Silber’s journey to the OU began far from the organization’s Manhattan headquarters.

He grew up in East Brunswick, New Jersey, and began his rabbinic career in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, where he served under Rabbi Benjamin Yudin. It was there, Rabbi Silber recalls, that he received not only his first experience in rabbanus but also an introduction to the responsibilities that come with serving a community.

After three and a half years in Fair Lawn, he and his family moved to Baltimore.

The timing was significant. Suburban Orthodox Congregation Toras Chaim had lost its previous rabbi, Rabbi Ervin Preis, zt”l, several months earlier.

More than two decades later, Rabbi Silber remains deeply connected to the community he came to serve.

“Baltimore is a fantastic community of Torah, of ruchnius, and of growth,” he says, describing a city filled with rabbanim, shuls, batei midrash, yeshivas, and communal leaders.

It was in Baltimore that Rabbi Silber developed much of his philosophy of communal leadership — one rooted in personal relationships, Torah, and an expansive conception of responsibility for the Jewish people.

That philosophy will now travel with him to the OU.

“RABBI HAUER’S SHOES CANNOT BE FILLED”

The circumstances surrounding Rabbi Silber’s appointment inevitably bring Rabbi Moshe Hauer to mind.

Rabbi Hauer’s sudden passing left a profound void in the Orthodox community. During his tenure at the OU, he emerged as a major public voice for American Orthodoxy, advocating on issues ranging from antisemitism on college campuses to support for Israel and the plight of the hostages following October 7.

But to Rabbi Silber, Rabbi Hauer was not simply an institutional leader.

He was his friend.

And he was his mentor.

“When I came to Baltimore a number of years ago, he was a couple of years older than me, but he really extended his hand to me as a chaver and as a mentor,” Rabbi Silber recalls.

Rabbi Hauer helped him navigate his first rabbinic position and taught him what communal leadership could look like. Over time, their relationship grew into one in which Rabbi Hauer became, in Rabbi Silber’s words, “almost like a rebbi in Jewish communal service.”

That makes stepping into Rabbi Hauer’s former position particularly meaningful.

Yet Rabbi Silber is emphatic that he does not intend to imitate him.

“Rabbi Hauer was a unique and singular personality,” he says. “I think he was a generational leader.”

Instead, Rabbi Silber sees Rabbi Hauer’s greatest contribution as having established a path for the OU’s future.

“What Rabbi Hauer did alongside Rabbi Joseph was create a derech. He created a vision. He showed the world, he showed the OU, what is possible with that seat of leadership.”

In that sense, Rabbi Silber says, he does not have to reinvent the position.

“He just has to be a mamshich.”

A continuer.

Rabbi Joseph, who worked alongside Rabbi Hauer for six years, describes their relationship in similarly personal terms.

“Rabbi Moshe Hauer, zt”l, was not just an esteemed colleague; he was a close friend and a mentor,” Rabbi Joseph says.

The two actually shared a unique connection from their roots. Both were born and raised in Montreal, and their parents lived literally a kilometer from one another, although they did not
actually meet until both came to the United States.

“Over our years together, we developed an incredibly close relationship and shared leadership model,” Rabbi Joseph says. “We navigated many global challenges and the day-to-day challenges that come with an organization the size of the OU.”

Rabbi Joseph remembers Rabbi Hauer as “a magnificent and impactful public voice of Klal Yisrael,” whether testifying before Congress or delivering a shiur.“Working alongside him was a masterclass in profound Torah scholarship, extraordinary empathy, and unwavering commitment to the community,” he says.

Rabbi Hauer also had a phrase that Rabbi Joseph remembers particularly well: “Our eyes are bigger than our hands.”

The meaning, Rabbi Joseph explains, was that the vision for what can be accomplished for the Jewish people is boundless, but people are ultimately limited by the physical hands they have to do the work.

“When he passed away so unexpectedly last fall, it left our entire community in shock and created a devastating void,” Rabbi Joseph says.

That void has helped shape the OU’s new structure, but neither Rabbi Silber nor Rabbi Joseph sees the future as an attempt to duplicate the past.

Instead, the goal is to continue the mission while creating a leadership partnership suited to the OU’s future.

WHY THE OU?
For Rabbi Silber, the appeal of the OU is not primarily institutional.

It is the breadth of the organization’s reach.

He points to OU Torah, kiruv initiatives, advocacy, JLIC, OU Israel, and the organization’s many programs serving Jews throughout the United States and Israel.

And, of course, there is OU Kosher.

“The OU is at the forefront of spiritual development for Klal Yisrael,” Rabbi Silber says.

What impresses him most is the sheer number of Jews touched by the organization.

“When you look at the number of people across the world whose spiritual development is anchored in the programming that the OU does, it’s incredible.”

He also sees the organization’s work in Israel as evidence that the OU’s mission extends far beyond the American Jewish community.

He points to the work of OU in Israel including initiatives serving new olim, Anglo communities, and at-risk teens.

“This is an organization that’s transforming Jewish life wherever there is Jewish life,” Rabbi Silber says.

For him, joining the OU means becoming part of that broader mission.

“To be part of it, to just be part of this beautiful, holy enterprise, is the zechus of a lifetime.”

THE LEADERSHIP QUALITY HE VALUES MOST
Asked about his greatest strength as a leader, Rabbi Silber initially hesitates.

He is uncomfortable speaking about his own virtues.

Instead, he reframes the question.

The essential quality for a leader of the OU, he says, is Ahavas Yisrael.

The reason is simple: The OU is not merely serving an institution. It is serving Klal Yisrael.

“This is a leadership position for Klal Yisrael,” he says. “The OU has the ability to have a hashpa’ah, to really have an incredible influence on many different segments of the Jewish community.”

That influence, he believes, demands an unconditional love for one’s fellow Jew.

“For a leader to be effective in any way… is to have a love for your fellow Jew.”

It is a philosophy that also explains his emphasis on achdus.

Rabbi Silber repeatedly returns to the idea that Jewish communal leadership must bring people together rather than deepen divisions.

His aspiration is not simply for the OU to expand its programs or increase its reach.

He wants the organization to help elevate the spiritual life of the Jewish people.

LEARNING BEFORE LEADING
Rabbi Silber does not intend to arrive at the OU on his first day with a long list of changes.

His first priority is learning.

“The first thing I’m going to do is to learn,” he says.

The OU, he notes, is a massive organization with an enormous number of initiatives, departments, professionals, volunteers, and lay leaders.

Before deciding where he wants to make his mark, he wants to understand the people already doing the work.

He describes the OU as his “new kehillah.”

“I want to get to know the congregants, to get to know my new kehillah,” he says.

That means meeting the professionals throughout the organization, understanding its programs, learning its strategic plan, and developing relationships with his new partners.

Among those partners will be Rabbi Dr. Josh Joseph.

TWO LEADERS, TWO LANES
Rabbi Silber speaks enthusiastically about working alongside Rabbi Joseph.

The two men have known one another for years, but their relationship has deepened considerably during the period leading up to Rabbi Silber’s appointment.

Rabbi Joseph says they actually go back quite a ways, having overlapped in semicha and shared overlapping circles of friends. The process surrounding the new leadership structure, however, has allowed them to connect much more closely.

“I have begun to get to know Rabbi Silber well over the last couple of months during this process, and it has been an absolute pleasure,” Rabbi Joseph says.

What he has already seen in Rabbi Silber, he says, is particularly significant for the position he is about to assume.

“He is supremely talented at connecting with people and building deep, genuine relationships,” Rabbi Joseph says. “He has his finger on the pulse of the spiritual, emotional, and social needs of families and individuals and I’m excited to see that scale nationally.”

Rabbi Joseph explained that the change reflects the OU’s unique structure as a lay- leadership-driven organization.

“The OU is a lay-leadership driven organization, led by our senior lay leader, President Mitchel Aeder,” Rabbi Joseph said. “In order to help launch the organization forward, the board designed a new leadership structure to clearly define lanes of operation for the EVP and CEO.”

The two areas of responsibility differ, but Rabbi Silber sees them as deeply connected and offers a memorable description of the distinction.

“Rabbi Dr. Joseph is responsible for running the guf,” he says. “He’s responsible for running the body of the OU, and I… have the opportunity and the zechus to run the neshamah, to run the soul of the OU.”

The metaphor is more than clever terminology.

Rabbi Silber sees the two responsibilities as fundamentally interconnected.

“The soul can’t exist without the body, and the body can’t exist without the soul.”

He also expresses deep appreciation for what Rabbi Joseph has done since Rabbi Hauer’s passing, when Joseph was effectively carrying responsibility for the organization’s professional leadership.

Now, Rabbi Silber says, they can build something together.

He hopes the relationship will develop beyond an institutional partnership.

“Hopefully… what will become the best of friends.”

A FAMILIAR FACE AT OU KOSHER
Rabbi Silber will also work alongside Rabbi Moshe Elefant, who continues to lead OU Kosher.

For Rabbi Silber, the relationship carries a personal connection to the organization’s kashrus division.

During his years at Yeshiva University, Rabbi Silber studied Yoreh De’ah under Rabbi Menachem Genack, the longtime CEO of OU Kosher.

He remembers Rabbi Genack bringing stories from the world of OU Kosher into his shiur.

Now, Rabbi Silber will have an opportunity to see that world from the inside.

He is particularly interested in learning about the technology and infrastructure behind the organization’s global kashrus operation.

Rabbi Silber sees Rabbi Elefant and the kashrus team as critical partners in the broader mission of the OU.

A VOICE IN WASHINGTON
The OU’s national role also means that Rabbi Silber will increasingly find himself engaged in public policy and advocacy.

Asked what he would say if given the opportunity to sit down with President Donald Trump, Rabbi Silber’s first instinct is not to make a demand.

It is to express gratitude.

He says that leaders and organizations can sometimes focus primarily on what they wish a politician had done differently.

But, he argues, the Jewish community should also recognize allies.

“I think what we have in our President of the United States is an ally, is a supporter of the Jewish community here, a supporter of the State of Israel,” he says.

Were he sitting with the president, Rabbi Silber says, his first message would be one of hakaras hatov.

“Thank you.”

He would then offer a prayer that the president be granted the strength and moral clarity to continue supporting the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

It is another example of Rabbi Silber’s instinct to begin from appreciation rather than confrontation.

LOOKING FIVE YEARS AHEAD
While Rabbi Silber is emphasizing listening and learning as he begins his tenure, Rabbi Joseph is already focused on the opportunities ahead for the OU.

His vision begins with the fundamental goal of bringing more Jews closer to Hashem through Torah and mitzvos.

“This isn’t just about Orthodox Jews; it is about reaching across the breadth of Klal Yisrael with warmth, curiosity, and Jewish pride,” Rabbi Joseph says.

One major opportunity, he believes, is expanding youth engagement.

Through JSU, the Jewish Student Union under NCSY, the OU is actively working on plans to grow its engagement from approximately 20,000 teens a year to 40,000 and ultimately 100,000 teens annually.

Rabbi Joseph also points to the OU’s work through Teach Coalition, utilizing education tax credits to make Jewish education more affordable while expanding access to students who currently lack it.

Another major priority is deepening the Anglo-Israel experience.

“Just a few years ago, we had no campus couples in Israel,” Rabbi Joseph says. “Today, we have 17 JLIC couples on 11 campuses and in 4 young professional communities in Israel, serving the growing English-speaking community.”

The OU is also surveying more than 450 shuls in Israel that have 20 or more Anglo families in order to better understand and support their religious and spiritual vibrancy.

For Rabbi Joseph, achieving these goals will require the organization to think beyond individual departments and programs.

“We will need to work across our various organizational units treating our people, relationships, and data as shared enterprise capabilities all aligned in service of Hashem,” he says.

For Rabbi Silber, these broader goals fit naturally into the mission he hopes to advance through the OU’s spiritual leadership.

BALTIMORE WILL REMAIN HOME
Although the OU is headquartered in New York, Rabbi Silber does not intend to immediately leave Baltimore.

During his first year, he expects to spend several days a week at OU headquarters while continuing to work remotely from Baltimore.

Over time, he expects that his presence in New York may increase as the responsibilities of the position require.

For now, however, the community that has been his home for more than two decades will remain an important part of his life.

And perhaps that is fitting.

Rabbi Silber’s understanding of national Jewish leadership was formed through the experience of local rabbanus— through knowing congregants personally, building institutions, teaching
Torah, navigating communal challenges, and developing relationships.

He now brings that experience to an organization serving communities far beyond Baltimore.

THE REBBEIM WHO SHAPED HIM
Rabbi Silber’s leadership philosophy did not develop in a vacuum.

He identifies Rabbi Mordechai Willig as his primary rebbi and someone to whom he continues to turn.

He also describes a close relationship with Rav Asher Weiss of Eretz Yisrael, particularly during the past period, when Rav Weiss helped guide him through significant decisions.

But Rabbi Silber’s list of influences is broad.

He speaks with appreciation about the rabbanim and Torah leaders with whom he has had relationships throughout his years in Baltimore, including Rabbi Aharon Feldman, Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer, Rabbi Boruch Neuberger, and Rav Sheftel Neuberger, zt”l.

He also confirms that he learned in Rav Hershel Schachter’s shiur at Yeshiva University for a year.

Yet when it comes to personal life questions, one relationship remains especially central.

“The person who I really ask my life shailos to is Rabbi Willig.”

WHAT WILL SUCCESS LOOK LIKE?
It might be tempting for a new leader entering such a prominent position to immediately announce an agenda.

Rabbi Silber resists that temptation.

He says it is too early to define success in concrete terms.

First comes learning.

Then comes agenda-setting.

Then comes measurement.

But beneath the institutional language, his personal definition of success is already clear.

He wants to strengthen achdus.

He wants to elevate the spiritual lives of Jews.

He wants to connect communities in America and Israel.

And he wants the OU to continue serving as a vehicle for those goals.

“I hope that more than anything, I will have Siyata Dishmaya,” he says.

Because ultimately, Rabbi Silber does not view the position as something he can accomplish through his own talents alone.

He views it as a shlichus.

“I would love to be able to do more than anything is to create achdus within the ranks of the Jewish people, to amplify the spiritual level… of Klal Yisrael.”

Rabbi Silber brings his own leadership style and vision to the role, while building on the strong foundation already in place.

He is not promising to remake the Orthodox Union.

He is not arriving with the claim that he alone possesses the answers to the challenges facing the Jewish people.

Instead, he speaks about continuing a derech, learning from those already doing the work, building relationships, loving every Jew, and asking for Siyata Dishmaya.

Rabbi Joseph, meanwhile, brings a deep familiarity with the OU’s operations and a vision for expanding the organization’s reach, particularly among young people, Jewish education, and the growing English-speaking community in Israel.

Their responsibilities may be different, but the stated goal is shared.

For a rabbi who has spent more than two decades building one community, Rabbi Silber’s next chapter will involve serving an entire network of communities.

And if Rabbi Silber’s own words — together with Rabbi Joseph’s vision for the organization — are any indication, the OU’s next chapter will be built around a partnership between Torah and professional leadership, between the neshamah and the guf, and ultimately around a shared commitment to serve Klal Yisrael.

Rabbi Silber intends to approach that enormous responsibility in the same way he approached rabbanus in Baltimore: with Torah, humility, Ahavas Yisrael, and a deep sense that leadership is ultimately a privilege to serve.