| Yehoshua Yehudah Leib Diskin | |
|---|---|
Rabbi in Brisk and Jerusalem |
|
| Born | 1818 Grodno, Belarus |
| Died | 1898 Jerusalem, Israel |
| Parents | Binyamin Diskin |
Yehoshua Yehuda Leib Diskin (1818–1898), also known as the Maharil Diskin, was a leading rabbi, Talmudist and Biblical commentator. He served as a rabbi in Łomża, Mezritch, Kovno, Shklov, Brisk and finally Jerusalem, after moving to Eretz Yisrael in 1878.
Diskin was born in Grodno, then part of the Russian Empire, in 1817. His father, Binyamin Diskin, was rabbi of that city, then Volkovisk and later Łomża. He was engaged before his Bar Mitzvah and at the age of fourteen he married the daughter of Rabbi Brode and lived with his father-in-law in Wolkowitz. He received rabbinic ordination at the age of 18 and inherited his father's rabbinate of Łomża at the age of 25.
In the 1880s, Diskin was offered the position of Chief Rabbi of New York, which he declined.
Diskin's second wife, Sarah, was known as the "Brisker Rebbetzin." She had a very strong mind and came from a prestigious family descended from Rabbi Yechezkel Landau (the Nodah bi-Yehudah) and Joshua Zeitlin. She brought 40,000 rubles into their marriage - a huge sum in those days - with which the couple established the Diskin Orphanage in Jerusalem in 1880. She died in 1907.[1]
Diskin established a yeshiva by the name of Ohel Moshe, (Tent of Moses). He held the line against attempts by maskilim to introduce secular institutions to Jerusalem. He died in 1898, on 29 Teveth. His son was Rabbi Yitzhak Yerucham Diskin.