Michael Melchior (70) is a Danish-born rabbi who has been rabbi and then chief rabbi at DMT in Oslo since 1980. For several years he has headed the Nordic Orthodox Beit Din, the religious court that, among other things, approves conversions to Judaism. He comes from a family that has produced Nordic rabbis for many generations. Today, Melchior lives in Jerusalem. From 1999 to 2009, he represented the left-wing religious party Meimad in the Israeli National Assembly, and he has been a member of several Israeli coalition governments led by the Labor Party. Among other things, he was Minister of State for the Jewish Diaspora in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Shimon Peres. In his last term as an elected representative, he was chairman of the committee for education, culture and sport. Today, he mainly works with peace, dialogue and environmental work, including in close collaboration with Muslim and Christian religious leaders. As a politician, he distinguished himself with a strong commitment to the environment. He initiated the establishment of a special committee for environmental issues in the Israeli National Assembly, and in 2007 he established the environmental organization Teva Ivri together with a group of other Israeli environmentalists.