Chaim Ozer Grodzinski ( he, חיים עוזר גראדזענסקי; August 24, 1863 – August 9, 1940) was a ''

Av beis din The ''av beit din'' ( ''ʾabh bêth dîn'', "chief of the court" or "chief justice"), also spelled ''av beis din'' or ''abh beth din'' and abbreviated ABD (), was the second-highest-ranking member of the Sanhedrin during the Second Temple period, ...

'' (rabbinical chief justice), ''

posek In Jewish law, a ''Posek'' ( he, פוסק , pl. ''poskim'', ) is a legal scholar who determines the position of ''halakha'', the Jewish religious laws derived from the written and Oral Torah in cases of Jewish law where previous authorities a ...

'' (halakhic authority), and

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...

ic scholar in

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

in the late 19th and early 20th centuriesfor over 55 years. He played an instrumental role in preserving Lithuanian yeshivas during the

Communist era A Communist Era is a sustained period of national government by a single party following the philosophy of Marxism–Leninism. Many countries have experienced such a period of Communist rule. Current communist states China The Chinese Communist P ...

, and Polish and Russian yeshivas of Poland and during the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...

in 1939, when he arranged for these yeshivas to relocate to Lithuanian cities.

Biography

Chaim Ozer Grodzinski was born on 9

Elul Elul ( he, אֱלוּל, Standard ''ʾElūl'', Tiberian ''ʾĔlūl'') is the twelfth month of the Jewish civil year and the sixth month of the ecclesiastical year on the Hebrew calendar. It is a month of 29 days. Elul usually occurs in August� ...

5623 (24 August 1863)Rabbi Aharon Sorasky. ''Glimpses of Greatness: Reb Chaim Ozer ''Is'' Klal Yisrael''.

Hamodia ''Hamodia'' ( he, המודיע – "''the Informer''") is a Hebrew-language daily newspaper published in Jerusalem. A daily English-language edition is also published in the United States, and weekly English-language editions in England and Israe ...

Features, 22 July 2010, p. C3. in

Iwye Iwye ( be, Іўе ; lt, Yvija; russian: Ивье ; pl, Iwje; yi, איוויע ''Ivye'') is a city and former shtetl in Belarus in the Grodno Region, 158 km east of Grodno. It is a station on the railway line between Lida and Maladzyechna ...

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...

, a small town near Vilnius. His father, David Shlomo Grodzinski, was rabbi of Iwye for over 40 years, and his grandfather was rabbi of the town for 40 years before that. When he was 12 years old he went to study with the ''perushim'', a group of Lithuanian Torah scholars in Eishyshok where he became bar mitzvah. At the age of 15, he began studying at the

Volozhin yeshiva Yeshivas Etz Ḥayyim (), commonly called the Volozhin Yeshiva (), was a prestigious Lithuanian ''yeshiva'' located in the town of Volozhin, Russian Empire (now Valozhyn, Belarus). It was founded around 1803 by Rabbi Ḥayyim Volozhiner, a stude ...

and was accepted into

Chaim Soloveitchik Chaim (Halevi) Soloveitchik (Yiddish: חיים סאָלאָווייטשיק, pl, Chaim Sołowiejczyk), also known as Reb Chaim Brisker (1853 – 30 July 1918), was a rabbi and Talmudic scholar credited as the founder of the popular Brisker appr ...

shiur Shiur (, , lit. ''amount'', pl. shiurim ) is a lecture on any Torah topic, such as Gemara, Mishnah, Halakha (Jewish law), Tanakh (Bible), etc. History The Hebrew term שיעור ("designated amount") came to refer to a portion of Jud ...

. He was married in his early twenties. Two years after his marriage, Grodzinski's father-in-law, Eliyahu Eliezer Grodnenski died and Grodnenski replaced him as a rabbi in Vilnius.

Leadership

In 1887 he was appointed as a dayan (religious judge) of the

beth din A beit din ( he, בית דין, Bet Din, house of judgment, , Ashkenazic: ''beis din'', plural: batei din) is a rabbinical court of Judaism. In ancient times, it was the building block of the legal system in the Biblical Land of Israel. Today, it ...

of Vilna. He was a participant in the founding conference of Agudath Israel (in

Kattowitz Katowice ( , , ; szl, Katowicy; german: Kattowitz, yi, קאַטעוויץ, Kattevitz) is the capital city of the Silesian Voivodeship in southern Poland and the central city of the Upper Silesian metropolitan area. It is the 11th most popul ...

, Silesia, in 1912) and served on the party's Council of Sages. He also was a co-founder and active leader of the

Va'ad ha-Yeshivot The Vaad HaYeshivos ( he, ועד הישיבות, , Council of Yeshivas) was an organization in Eastern Europe that helped financially support the Lithuanian-style yeshivos (institutions of Torah study) in Eastern Europe. Founded by Rabbi Yisroel M ...

(Council of the Yeshivot), based in Vilnius, an umbrella organization that offered material and spiritual support for yeshivot throughout the eastern provinces of Poland from 1924 to 1939. He wrote a three-volume work ''Achiezer''. He assisted in the management of the Rameilles Yeshiva of Vilnius. His students included

Yehezkel Abramsky Yehezkel Abramsky ( he, יחזקאל אברמסקי) (7 February 1886 – 19 September 1976), also affectionately referred to as Reb Chatzkel Abramsky, was a prominent and influential Lithuanian Jewish Orthodox rabbi and scholar, born and raised i ...

Eliezer Silver Eliezer Silver ( he, אליעזר סילבר; February 15, 1882Social Security Death Index - February 7, 1968 ) was the President of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada and among American Jewry's foremost religious leaders. He hel ...

Moshe Shatzkes Moshe Shatzkes ( he, משה שאצקס; 1881–1958) was a rabbi and Talmudic scholar, commonly known as the Łomża Rov". Early years Shatzkes was born in Vilnius, Lithuania in 1881. His father, Rabbi Avraham Aharon Shatzkes, was the spiritual ...

, and

Reuven Katz Rabbi Reuven Katz ( he, ראובן כץ/כ"ץ; 1880–1963) was a rabbi in Russia, the United States, and Israel. Serving at first in several Russian communities and then in Bayonne, New Jersey, for the last thirty years of his life he served as c ...

. In 1909, there was a meeting in Hamburg, Germany, that was the precursor of

Agudas Yisroel Agudas Israel may refer to: *Agudas Israel (Latvia), a political party in Latvia during the 1920s and 1930s *World Agudath Israel, the political arm of Ashkenazi Haredi Judaism *Agudat Yisrael, a political party representing the ultra-Orthodox popul ...

, whose main goal was to combat the Zionists and the Mizrachi against Zionism. Grodzinski was the first chairman of the Moetzes Gedolei Torah, the rabbinical advisory board to the Agudah.

Death

Grodzinski died of cancer on 9 August 1940 (5 Av 5700).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grodzinski, Chaim Ozer 1863 births 1940 deaths People from Iwye Belarusian Haredi rabbis Lithuanian Haredi rabbis 19th-century Lithuanian rabbis 20th-century Lithuanian rabbis Anti-Zionist Haredi rabbis Deaths from cancer in Lithuania Rabbis from Vilnius