ר׳ יוסף שלום אלישיב

ר׳ יוסף שלום אלישיב (1910–2012) was a Jerusalem halakhic decisor and one of the most influential leaders of late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century Lithuanian Haredi Judaism. Born in Šiauliai, he was the only child of ר׳ אברהם לוינסון and Chaya Musha, daughter of the kabbalist ר׳ שלמה אלישיב, whose surname the family adopted. They immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1924 with assistance from ר׳ אברהם יצחק הכהן קוק and settled in Mea Shearim. In 1930 he married Sheina Chaya, daughter of ר׳ אריה לוין. He was appointed to Jerusalem’s regional rabbinical court in 1950 and to the Great Rabbinical Court in 1955, serving until his resignation in 1974. Thereafter his daily learning and rulings centred on the modest Tiferet Bachurim synagogue in Mea Shearim. His influence grew through oral rulings transmitted by students, especially on family law, ritual practice, medicine and technology; edited responsa and lectures appeared as קובץ תשובות and הערות. After the deaths of ר׳ אלעזר מנחם מן שך and ר׳ אלעזר מנחם שך’s successors, he became the pre-eminent halakhic address of much of the non-Hasidic Haredi world. He died at Shaare Zedek Medical Center aged 102 and was buried at Har HaMenuchot.