Rabbi Abby Mendelson was born in New York City. Raised on Long Island, he came to Pittsburgh to attend college. Eleven years later, he graduated with a Ph.D. in English. Afterward, he pursued a career in communications, including journalism, advertising, public relations, communications, and publishing.
In addition, for more than 40 years he has rigorously studied Torah as an avocation, both formally and informally, in Pittsburgh and Israel, a regimen he continues daily.
As a Torah teacher, he concentrates on a wide variety of topics, including Tanach, Mishnah, Talmud, Hashkafah, and history, presenting in a wide variety of formats, both in-person and virtually, including public lectures, college outreach classes, individual tutoring and counseling sessions, correctional facility chaplaincy and seminars, and high school classes. Over his career he has created his own programs and has also been sponsored by such institutions as Pittsburgh’s School of Advanced Jewish Studies, Jewish University Center, Kollel Jewish Learning Center, Congregation Poale Zedeck, and the Aleph Institute.
As an active – and highly visible – member of the Pittsburgh Jewish community, he has given public lectures on a wide variety of Jewish topics in such diverse arenas as Congregation Poale Zedeck, Shaarei Torah Congregation, Jewish University Center, Hillel Academy, United Jewish Federation, Jewish Community Center, American Jewish Committee, Jewish Education Institute, Dor Chadash, Na'amat USA, Beth Hamedresh Hagodol, Amit Women, Zionist Organization of America, Riverview Towers, National Council of Synagogue Youth, Congregation Beth Sholom, Temple Beth-El, Tree of Life Synagogue, and others in Pittsburgh, New York, and Israel.
He has also published frequently in Pittsburgh’s Jewish Chronicle, as well as nationally in the Jewish Observer, Yated Ne’eman, Hamodia, and other periodicals. His editing credits include two ArtScroll history volumes, Amos Bunim’s A Fire in his Soul, Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky’s Parsha Parables series, among others.