Yitzhak Yaakov Rabinovich

Yitzhak Yaakov Rabinovich rav
יצחק יעקב ראבינאוויטשן
Ponevezh
Religion	Orthodox Judaism
Political party	Agudat Yisrael
Profession	rabbi, scholar
Occupation	Rabbi, Talmudic scholar
Organization
Temple	Ponevezh Yeshiva
Founder of	founder and rosh yeshiva of Ponevezh Yeshiva
Senior posting
Profession	rabbi, scholar

Yitzhak Yaakov Rabinovich (1854–1919), יצחק יעקב ראבינאוויטש‎, known also as reb Itzele Ponevezher,^[1] was an Orthodox rabbi, supporter of socialist ideas and founder of the Ponevezh Yeshiva.

Biography

Yitzhak Yaakov Rabinovich was born in 1854 in

. While studying together two of them developed new method of studying Talmud: by logic and deep understanding of text - in contrast to the previously long-used method of pilpul (casuistry).

In 1889, Rabinovich was appointed a teacher at the

.

In 1909 he received a substantial amount of money from Moscow Jew,

Ponevezh yeshiva

.

Rabinovich found it difficult to fund-raise - which was one of the traditional tasks of head of yeshiva. That is why in 1913 he refused the offer to become head of Etz Haim Yeshiva in Jerusalem. In yeshiva in Ponevezh, which was offering generous scholarships to its students, he had not had the problem of fundraising as the yeshiva had its own founding sponsor.

Rabinovich is considered progressive in his social and public affairs opinions. In 1910 at the

and was elected to the rabbinical council of the party.

After lecture of

. In 1917, at the meeting of Masoret ve-Herut (Orthodox leaders), he proposed a resolution to endorse redistribution of land to peasants. However his proposal did not reach enough support to be accepted by the meeting.

Although his teachings and halachic rulings gained wide support and respect, he never published his responsa and novellae. Some of them were preserved by his students and in letters his correspondents received.

In 1915, Rabinovich with his students were forced (by approaching Germans and by Russian policy towards Jews) to flee to

Bolsheviks

ruling the town, he was unable to teach nor to re-establish his yeshiva. Soon after that, on Friday, 21 Adar I, 5679^[2] (21 February, 1919), he died of typhus.^[3]

Heritage

His work and teachings found followers and outlived him. At the end of 1919, when Ponevezh returned to Lithuania, the

entered the town in June 1941. The school building was incorporated into the part of town that was turned into a ghetto, and yeshiva students were murdered only a few days after the Nazi occupation started. In 1944, in

See also

• Lithuanian Jews
• Ponevezh yeshiva

References