Rabinowitz was the dean of the Birkat Moshe hesder Yeshiva in Maale Adumim and a highly respected authority on Jewish law.
By JEREMY SHARONRabbi Nachum Rabinovitch (sitting, center left) at a rabbinical conference of the Giyur Ka’halacha independent Orthodox network of conversion courts for which he served as president(photo credit: EZRA LANDAU)Rabbi Nachum Rabinovitch, one of the most senior arbiters of Jewish law in the religious-Zionist community, passed away on Tuesday night aged 92.Rabinovitch was the dean of the Birkat Moshe hesder Yeshiva in Maale Adumim and a highly respected authority on Jewish law.Born in Montreal, Canada in 1929, Rabinovitch was ordained by dean of the Ner Yisroel Yeshiva in Baltimore Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman, but also obtained a master's degree in mathematics from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD in Philosophy of Science from the University of Toronto.Rabinovitch spent much of his life serving as a communal rabbi and teaching in the US and UK, and made aliyah to Israel in 1983.Rabinovitch was on the radical right of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and was fiercely against the Oslo Accords, reportedly advocated for settlements to take measures to prevent their evacuation by the IDF.Rabinovitch also denounced then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin as a “moser,” someone who hands over Jews or Jewish property to non-Jewish authorities and he was investigated for incitement to murder after Rabin’s assassination, although was never indicted.In 2015, Rabinovitch endorsed the Giyur Ka’halacha network of independent courts for Jewish conversion and served as its senior rabbinical judge.The network was set up to increase conversion amongs the community of Israeli citizens from the former Soviet Union who are the descendants of Jews but not Jewish according to Jewish law, especially minors in the community.His decision was opposed by several other senior rabbinical figures in the religious-Zionist community for undermining the status of the Chief Rabbinate, but he nevertheless continued to support the new conversion courts.Education Minister and Bayit Yehudi Chairman MK Rabbi Rafi Peretz lamented Rabinovitch’s passing, describing him as an “unparalleled Torah scholar, a man of the Land of Israel in all of his limbs who established generations of Torah scholars.”The Tzohar association of religious-Zionist rabbis described Rabinovitch as a “halachic genius” and a great arbiter of Jewish law who combined innovativeness without fear alongside great responsibility,” adding that “his works will influence the Torah world for many years.The Association of Hesder Yeshivas of which Rabinovitch’s Birkat Moshe yeshiva was part described the rabbi as “one of the most important arbiters and disseminators of Torah in our generation, who established generations of students who sanctify the name of Heaven in everything they, and in whose footsteps they go.”Rabbi Seth Farber, founder of Giyur Ka’halacha, said that “the Torah world has lost a giant, but no less significantly the Jewish people have lost a noble man.”Said Farber "Rabbi Rabinovitch's fearlessness in pursuing a unified Jewish people through the conversion of immigrants from the former Soviet Union - even when he was under direct attack from the chief rabbinate - will be his legacy. Under his leadership, more than 1,000 immigrants converted in the last five years through the Giyur Ka’halacha network. Rabbi Rabinovitch personally sat on the first conversion case of of Giyur Ka’halacha, with more than 20 rabbis observing, to serve as a personal example and he continued sitting on courts until last year. He was a visionary.”The Orthodox Union described Rabinovitch as "one of the greatest arbiters of Jewish law in the religious Zionist world in Israel,” and said that “despite his great stature, Rabbi Rabinovitch was tremendously humble.”Deans of the of Barkai Center for Practical Rabbinics and Community Development Rabbis David Fine and Shlomo Sobol said Rabinovitch’s "unique status as one of the generation’s greatest rabbinic decisors combined with having been born in Montreal and his having served pulpits in the United States prior to his ultimate Aliyah to Israel made him uniquely authoritative to bring about important changes in the way rabbinical education is provided for in Israel."
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