Name Shaul Yisraeli Role Rabbi | Died June 17, 1995 | |
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Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli (July 14, 1909 – June 17, 1995) was one of the distinuguished rabbis of religious Zionism. He served as a rabbi, as a dayan in the Supreme religious court of Israel, as a member of The Chief Rabbinate Council, as Rosh Yeshiva of Mercaz HaRav, and as President of the Eretz Hemdah Institute. Rabbi Yisraeli additionally won the Israel Prize in Judaic Studies.
Childhood
Rabbi Yisraeli was born in the city of Slutsk, in the Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus) to Rabbi Binyamin and Chava Isralite. Rabbi Binyamin was the rabbi and Av Beit Din (Chief Rabbinical Judge) of Koydanovo, near Minsk, devoting himself to its spiritual rehabilitation after World War I. Rabbi Binyamin was arrested by the Soviets for teaching Torah to community members and sent to Siberia, and subsequently, all contact with him was lost. Chava was later murdered by the Nazis.
As a youth, he learned in the Talmud Torah and Yeshiva Ketana under Rabbi Yehezkel Abramsky in Slutsk; this during the period when Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer was the Rosh Yeshiva.