Arthur Schneier (born March 20, 1930) is an Austrian-American rabbi and human rights activist. Rabbi Schneier has served for over 50 years as the Senior Rabbi of New York City’s Park East Synagogue. While being honored with the Presidential Citizens Medal from President Bill Clinton in 2001, Rabbi Schneier was described as “a Holocaust survivor who has devoted a lifetime to overcoming forces of hatred and intolerance and set an inspiring example of spiritual leadership by encouraging interfaith dialog and intercultural understanding, as well as promoting the cause of religious freedom around the world.” Schneier is among the oldest pulpit rabbis in the United States. Education Rabbi Schneier graduated with a B.A. from Yeshiva University in 1951, was awarded an M.A. from New York University in 1953 and received his rabbinical ordination from Yeshiva University in 1955. Schneier is also the recipient of 11 honorary doctorates from American and European universities. Career In 1962, Rabbi Schneier became the senior rabbi at Park East Synagogue in New York City. During his service there, he has hosted several world religious and political leaders including Pope Benedict XVI—the first-ever papal visit to an American synagogue—and two Secretaries General of the United Nations. Schneier has met with Popes John Paul II, Francis, and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I to promote and facilitate interfaith dialogue. In 2012, the New York Senate passed a resolution in celebration of Rabbi Schneier's 50 years of service at Park East Synagogue. He is also the Founder and Dean of Park East Day School, a Modern Orthodox Jewish day school. In 1965 he founded the Appeal of Conscience Foundation as an “interfaith coalition of business and religious leaders” dedicated to promoting “peace, tolerance and ethnic conflict resolution.” Throughout his career, Rabbi Schneier has actively advanced the cause of peace and tolerance. He is known for his efforts to rebuild Jewish and religious life in Russia after the collapse of the USSR and was instrumental in the return of the Moscow Synagogue to the Russian Jewish community. Rabbi Schneier has led 68 interfaith missions in China, Russia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. In 1992, he convened the Religious Summit on the Former Yugoslavia in Switzerland, and in 1995, he convened the Conflict Resolution Conference in Vienna to mobilize world religious leaders to stop the conflict in the Balkans. For more than 20 years, Rabbi Schneier worked closely with Grand Mufti Ceric of