ר׳ נחום אליעזר רבינוביץ

ר׳ נחום אליעזר רבינוביץ (1928–2020), born Norman Louis Rabinovitch in Montreal, was a Canadian-British-Israeli halakhist, mathematician and Religious Zionist rosh yeshiva. He studied with ר׳ פנחס הירשפרונג and at Ner Israel in Baltimore under ר׳ יעקב יצחק רודרמן, receiving semikhah while pursuing university mathematics; he later earned a doctorate from the University of Toronto. After congregational rabbinates in Charleston and Toronto, he became principal of Jews’ College in London in 1971. There he trained a generation of British rabbis; ר׳ יונתן זקס described him as a primary role model. In 1982 he moved to Ma’ale Adumim to head Yeshivat Birkat Moshe, which he led until his death. His fourteen-volume יד פשוטה on משנה תורה combines close manuscript work, Talmudic analysis, history and a systematic reading of ר׳ משה בן מימון. His responsa address military service, conversion, technology, medicine and public law in a Jewish state. He supported women’s advanced Torah study and helped establish the independent conversion court גיור כהלכה. Marked by rationalism, intellectual independence and confidence in human freedom, he became a formative decisor of Religious Zionism. He died in Ma’ale Adumim and was buried at Har HaMenuchot.