Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik
Belarusian rabbi (1886-1959)
Yitzchok Zev Halevi Soloveitchik (Hebrew: יצחק זאב הלוי סולובייצ'יק), also known as Velvel Soloveitchik ("Zev" means "wolf" in Hebrew, and "Velvel" is the diminutive of "wolf" in Yiddish) or the Brisker Rov ("rabbi of/from Brisk", (19 October 1886 – 11 October 1959), was an Orthodox rabbi and rosh yeshiva of the Brisk yeshiva in Jerusalem.
A scion of the Soloveitchik rabbinical dynasty, he is commonly referred to as the "GRY"Z" (an acronym for Gaon Rabbi Yitzchok Zev) and "The Rov". He was known for his stringency in halakha (Jewish law) and advocacy for non-participation in the Israeli political system.
Biography
Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik was born to Chaim Soloveitchik in Valozhyn. On his mother's side, he was the grandson of Refael Shapiro, a rosh yeshiva in the Volozhin yeshiva.
Soloveitchik moved with his family to the Jewish community of Brisk after the czarist government closed the Volozhin yeshiva. He would succeed his father as a rabbi of Brisk and leader of Judaic studies in his region.
After fleeing the Holocaust and moving to Mandatory Palestine, he re-established the Brisk yeshiva in Jerusalem.
After Soloveitchik's death in 1959, his son Berel took over his father's position as rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Brisk. Another of his sons was Meshulam Dovid Soloveitchik.
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This entry incorporates text from “Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.