Dudi Zilbershlag

Dudi Zilbershlag was born in 1958 in Petah Tikva

Dudi Zilbershlag was born in Petah Tikva on February 15, 1958, to Shlomo Zalman Zilbershlag and Esther Babad. His father, an educator from Bukovina, raised the children in a Hasidic home. The family moved to Bnei Brak when he was young.

He studied at yeshivas in Haifa, Bnei Brak and Jerusalem. In the mid 1970s he married Rivka Kostiner, and from 1977 to 1981 he studied in a kollel. From 1983 to 1984 he served in the IDF Military Rabbinate and received rabbinic ordination in that period.

In 1984 he opened a religious book store and publisher in Bnei Brak. He helped found the Haredi weekly Erev Shabbat and edited it, and in 1993 he founded the advertising firm Ksharim. He advised Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996 and Ehud Barak in 1999, and in 1997 he founded the newspaper BaKehila.

After his son Meir died of liver disease, he founded Meir Panim in 2000. He became chairman of ZAKA in 2006 and president of the National Council for Volunteering in 2007. He wrote in support of Haredi employment and Haredi army programs, which drew criticism within the Haredi public.

In 2008 he became chairman of Bikur Holim Hospital in Jerusalem. He left the post in October 2010 after suspicions were raised that he had taken donations meant for the hospital.