Michael "Mickey" Rosen (Shmuel Meir ben HaRav Yaakov Kopul, 21 January 1945 – 8 December 2008) was a British-born Israelirabbi and founder of Yakar, an innovative Jewish learning community and synagogue.
After serving as a rabbi near Manchester, Rosen opened a Jewish educational center in London in 1978 called Yakar – Center for Tradition and Creativity, whose name is an acronym of his father's name, Yaakov Kopul Rosen, and also means precious or worthy in the Hebrew language. In 1992 he established a Yakar center in Jerusalem and, in 2007, another in Tel Aviv. What was unique about the Yakar concept was that it blended traditional Jewish learning with social action, interfaith dialogue and the arts.[3]
He spent his last three weeks in coma after a fall. He was buried on 9 December 2008 in the Har HaMenuchot cemetery in Jerusalem. He was survived by his wife, Gilla, six children, twenty six grandchildren, his two brothers, Rabbi Jeremy Rosen and Rabbi David Rosen, and his sister, Angela.
He was widely considered one of the most popular and revered Anglo-immigrant rabbis in Israel.[5]