Yehuda Amital
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Rav Yehuda Amital (Hebrew: יהודה עמיטל) (born 31 October 1924), a noted Orthodox Jewish rabbi, is a Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion and a former member of Knesset.
Rabbi Amital was born Yehuda Klein in Hungary. When Germany invaded Hungary in 1943, the Nazis sent his entire family to Auschwitz, where they were killed. Yehudah himself was sent to a Labor camp, thus surviving the Holocaust. He remained in the Labor camp for eight months, and was liberated on October 4, 1944 by the Russian Army. After his liberation he made his way to Bucharest, from where he travelled to Palestine, arriving on November 12, 1944.
After a short stay at the Atlit detainee camp, he made his way to Jerusalem, where he studied at Yeshivat Hebron, receiving Semicha from Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer. He also learned with Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlop, a student of Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook. Around this time he joined the Haganah. After his semicha he moved to Pardes Chanah in order to learn at Yeshivat Kletzk. While learning at the yeshiva, he married Miriam, the daughter of the Rosh Yeshiva and the granddaughter of Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer. When the yeshiva moved to Rehovot, Rav Amital went with it, living in Rehovot until he moved to Jerusalem in the 60's.
The day after the declaration of independence, Rav Amital's unit was mobilized. He took part in battles of Latrun and the western Galilee. After the war Rav Amital became a rabbinic secretary in the Rabbinical Court in Rehovot and, two years later, he became an instructor at Yeshivat HaDarom, where he helped formulate the idea of a Hesder Yeshiva.
After the Six Day War, he founded Yeshivat Har Etzion, a Hesder Yeshiva in Gush Etzion. The Yeshiva opened in Kfar Etzion in 1968, with only 30 students, and, after two years, moved to its current location in Alon Shvut. In 1971 Rav Amital asked Rav Aharon Lichtenstein to join him as Rosh Yeshiva.
In 1988 Rav Amital founded the left-leaning religious Meimad movement, and was elected its chairman after it became a Political party in 1999. In 1995, Rav Amital served as a minister in the government of Shimon Peres.
At the age of 80, Rav Amital, with the intention of retiring, asked the management of Yeshivat Har Etzion to select his successors. The yeshiva chose Rabbis Yaaqov Medan and Baruch Gigi. On January 4, 2006, Rav Medan and Rav Gigi were officially invested as co-roshei yeshiva alongside Rav Amital and Rav Lichtenstein.
Rav Amital continues to be a prominent public figure in Israel, with a broad impact on matters of religious and national concern.
[edit] External links
- Yeshivat Har Etzion
- Meimad
- Alan Brill, “Worlds Destroyed, Worlds Rebuilt: The Religious Thought of R. Yehudah Amital”
Edah Journal 5:2, Sivan 2006 [1]
Categories: Articles lacking sources from February 2007 | All articles lacking sources | Articles to be expanded since February 2007 | All articles to be expanded | Religious Zionist Orthodox rabbis | 1925 births | Living people | Former Members of the Knesset | Rosh yeshivas | Jewish Holocaust survivors | Hungarian Jews
