“Despite the fact that the vast majority of Israeli Jews are not Orthodox, the ultra-Orthodox hold the keys not just to Israel's Jewish sacred places, but to the life cycle events - conversions, weddings, divorces, burials - of the country's more than six million Jews.”

American journalist and political commentator, born 1984

Bari Weiss is an American journalist and political commentator. Born in 1984, she has been editor-in-chief of CBS News since October 2025. She is also known for founding The Free Press and for her work at major American newspapers. Weiss served as an op-ed and book review editor at The Wall Street Journal from 2013 to 2017, then as an op-ed staff editor and writer on culture and politics at The New York Times from 2017 to 2020. Her resignation from the Times drew wide attention after she criticized the paper’s internal culture in a public letter. In 2021, she launched The Free Press and the podcast Honestly.