Isaac Halevy

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Yitzhak Isaac Halevy (Rabinowitz) (September 21, 1847–May 15, 1914) (Hebrew: יצחק אייזק הלוי) was a rabbi, Jewish historian, and founder of the Agudath Israel organization. Relatively little of his correspondence survived the holocaust, and so information concerning his activities is scarce. A somewhat hagiographical treatment based on discovered correspondence of Isaac Halevy is to be found in Reichel (1969), and this forms the basis for the present article.

[edit] Biographical Information

Isaac Halevy was born in Ivenec, Provice of Minsk, near Vilna into a rabbinical family, the grandson of Moredecai Eliezer Kovner. After his father was killed by soldiers, he was raised by his paternal grandfather. At 13, he entered the Volozhin yeshiva, where he was recognized as a talmudic prodigy. He held a number of communal positions in his early adulthood, including gabbai of the aforementioned Volzhin Yeshiva.

Halevy was influential in having R. Haim Soloveichik appointed to head the yeshiva, and he hosted the latter in his own house for months at a time.

Isaac Halevy died in Hamburg in 1914 from a heart attack suffered three weeks earlier.

[edit] Works

Isaac Halevy's major work was the Dorot Harishonim or Dorot Harischonim (דורות הראשונים: דברי הימים לבני ישראל), a six-volume religiously oriented review of Jewish history, covering the span from the end of the Mishnaic period to the end of the geonic period.

[edit] References

• Reichel, O. Asher (1969), Isaac Halevy (1847–1914): Spokesman and Historian of Jewish Tradition, New York: Yeshiva University Press.