ר׳ אהרן יהודה לייב שטיינמן

ר׳ אהרן יהודה לייב שטיינמן (1914–2017) was a Lithuanian-trained Israeli rosh yeshiva and a central leader of Haredi Judaism. Born in Kamyenyets and raised in nearby Brisk, he studied at Toras Chessed under ר׳ משה סוקולובסקי and heard ר׳ יצחק זאב סולובייצ׳יק; he later studied in Kobrin and Kletsk under ר׳ פסח פרוסקין and ר׳ אהרן קוטלר. Threatened by Polish conscription, he left in 1937 for Yeshivat Etz Chaim in Montreux, Switzerland, where he taught alongside ר׳ משה סולובייצ׳יק. During the Second World War he was interned in a Swiss labour camp. He married the refugee Tamar Kornfeld and immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1945. After teaching at Yeshivat Chafetz Chaim in Kfar Saba, he settled in Bnei Brak, led Ponevezh’s junior yeshiva and later Yeshivot Gaon Yaakov and Orחות תורה. His multi-volume אילת השחר offers analytic studies of Torah and Talmud. From the late 1990s, and especially after 2012, he exercised exceptional influence over Lithuanian Haredi education and public affairs while maintaining an austere home at 5 Chazon Ish Street. He died in Bnei Brak aged 103 and was buried in the Ponevezh cemetery.