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Yitzhak Isaac Halevy Rabinowitz | |
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| Born | (1847-09-21)September 21, 1847 |
| Died | May 15, 1914(1914-05-15) (aged 66) |
| Religious life | |
| Religion | Judaism |
Yitzhak Isaac Halevy (Rabinowitz) (Hebrew:יצחק אייזיק הלוי; September 21, 1847 – May 15, 1914) was a rabbi, Jewish historian, and founder of theAgudath Israel organization. Relatively little of his correspondence survived theHolocaust, and so information concerning his activities is scarce. A somewhat hagiographical treatment based on discovered correspondence of Isaac Halevy is to be found inReichel (1969), and this forms the basis for the present article.
Isaac Halevy was born inIwieniec (now inMinsk Region,Belarus), nearVilna into a rabbinical family. He was a grandson ofMordechai Eliezer Kovno. After his father was killed by soldiers, he was raised by his paternal grandfather. At 13, he entered theVolozhin yeshiva, where he was recognized as atalmudic prodigy. He held a number of communal positions in his early adulthood, includinggabbai of the aforementionedVolozhin Yeshiva.
Halevy was influential in having R.Chaim Soloveichik appointed to head the yeshiva, and he hosted the latter in his own house for months at a time. Although Halevy is best known for his classic workDorot Harishonim, rebutting many of the mainstream historical accounts of Jewish history, he was also most influential behind the scenes in uniting the leading rabbis of the West and of the East in forming the Agudath Israel world movement, as described by Reichel.
Isaac Halevy died inHamburg in 1914 from aheart attack suffered three weeks earlier.
Isaac Halevy's major work was theDorot Harishonim (Hebrew:דורות הראשונים: דברי הימים לבני ישראל), a six-volume religiously-oriented review of Jewish history, covering the span from the end of theMishnaic period to the end of thegeonic period. It is largely concerned with rebutting the accounts given by Jewish historians such asSolomon Judah Loeb Rapoport,Heinrich Graetz,Isaac Hirsch Weiss (author ofDor Dor ve-Doreshav), and the like. These works later formed the basis for RabbiAvigdor Miller's writings on history, and more recently is heavily quoted and referenced inCodex Judaica: Chronological Index of Jewish History by Mattis Kantor.[1]
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