Avram Mlotek

Avram Mlotek (born 1987) is a rabbi, cantor, writer and actor. In 2016, Mlotek was listed as one of America's "Most Inspiring Rabbis" by The Forward and in 2012 was named a "leading innovator in Jewish life today" by the Jewish Week's 36 Under 36 Section. Mlotek is a founder of Base Hillel, a pluralistic home centered outreach program for Jewish millennials, now in nine cities worldwide and serves as rabbi for the program's Manhattan location. Mlotek's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Daily News, The Forward, Haaretz, Tablet and The New York Jewish Week. Mlotek became the first Orthodox rabbi to officiate a same-sex Orthodox Jewish wedding ceremony on February 18th 2020, in Manhattan, NY.

Mlotek is the son of Zalmen Mlotek, artistic director of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, and Debra Cohen Mlotek. He is a grandson of Joseph Mlotek and Eleanor Mlotek. He grew up in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx, and in Teaneck, New Jersey. Mlotek has a younger brother, Elisha, who is a filmmaker and was a founding member of the Hasidic jam band Zusha.

In 2009, Mlotek graduated cum laude with a BA in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University where he was a 2008 Sorensen Fellow. He received rabbinic ordination from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School in 2015. According to the Base Hillel website, he has studied theatre at Sarah Lawrence College, Islamic Scriptures at Bergen Community College, cantorial music at Yeshiva University, Talmud at Yeshivat Hadar, theater education at City College, and clinical pastoral education at The Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He is a current student at Fordham School of Social Work.

Given the rise of antisemitism after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Mlotek traveled to sites of various antisemitic activities and wrote about his experiences in Paris, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and even in Manhattan, where he was accosted by a Farrakhan supporter on a subway train.

In 2019, Mlotek announced he would officiate at same-sex ceremonies for Jewish couples. He has also argued for greater inclusion of multi-faith families and other marginalized populations within Judaism.

Mlotek has performed publicly on the Yiddish stage since he was three years old, most notably in the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene's Off-Broadway Family show, Kids and Yiddish, in which he appeared for several seasons and is featured on their original cast album, Kids and Yiddish, A Musical Adventure. As a child, Mlotek was featured in several Klezmer CDs including The Klezmatics, Oy Vey Chanukah for Kids, Di Grine Katchke, and others.

While at Brandeis, he performed as Henry Drummond in Inherit The Wind, where the student newspaper's reviewer wrote:

And, though I don't mean to take away the importance of this play as an ensemble piece, I cannot underscore enough the brilliance of Avram Mlotek's '09 portrayal of Henry S. Drummond. Mlotek's combination of pace, projection, speech stylization, physical mannerism and movement on stage from the moment he was introduced made him the central figure on which all eyes fell. The control in his delivery and conviction in his stride alone thrust him into a category of the uncommonly good undergraduate theater performers who are rarely seen.

Since college, Avram has performed in staged readings for the National Yiddish Theatre-Folksbiene including Chaim Grade's My Mother's Sabbath Days, H. Leyvick's The Wedding in Fernvald, H. Leyvick's The Miracle of the Ghetto and Paddy Chayefsky's The Tenth Man (in Yiddish).

He is married to Yael Kornfeld, a geriatric social worker, and their wedding was the featured wedding of the week in The New York Times Styles Section.