ר׳ יחיאל יעקב ויינברג

ר׳ יחיאל יעקב ויינברג (1884–1966), author of שו״ת שרידי אש, connected Lithuanian yeshiva learning with German Neo-Orthodoxy and academic scholarship. Born in Ciechanowiec, he studied at Mir and Slabodka under ר׳ נתן צבי פינקל, then served as rabbi of Pilviškiai. In Germany he earned a doctorate and became the last rector of the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary. Trapped in Warsaw in 1939, he was transferred as a Soviet citizen from the Warsaw Ghetto to Wülzburg detention camp in 1941 and remained imprisoned until 1945. His student ר׳ שאול ויינגורט later brought him to Montreux, where he wrote influential postwar responsa addressing communal reconstruction, education and modern Jewish life.