{"id":42390,"date":"2012-03-25T12:32:08","date_gmt":"2012-03-25T20:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=42390"},"modified":"2012-03-25T12:42:29","modified_gmt":"2012-03-25T20:42:29","slug":"42390","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=42390","title":{"rendered":"The Exciting Life Of Rav Chaim Tchernowitz aka Rav Za&#8217;ir"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org\/jsource\/judaica\/ejud_0002_0019_0_19663.html\">Bio<\/a>: &#8220;TCHERNOWITZ, CHAIM (pseudonym Rav Za&#8217;ir; 1871\u20131949), talmudic scholar and Hebrew author. Tchernowitz, born in Sebesh (district of Vitebsk), Russia, studied in Lithuania and obtained semikhah from Isaac Elchanan *Spektor of Kovno in 1896. Moving to Odessa the following year, he founded his own yeshivah, eventually transforming it into a rabbinical seminary (1907) which attracted many students from the Jewish intelligentsia in Russia, including \u1e24ayyim Na\u1e25man Bialik and Joseph Klausner. Tchernowitz&#8217;s ambition was to combine traditional study with modern research in order to rejuvenate Jewish learning. His pseudonym Rav \u1e92a&#8217;ir (young rabbi) reflects his aims. Tchernowitz received a Ph.D. from the University of Wuerzburg in 1914. Settling in the United States in 1923, he taught Talmud at the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In his second lecture on <A HREF=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chaim_Ozer_Grodzinski\">R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinksi<\/a> for <A HREF=\"http:\/\/torahinmotion.org\">Torah in Motion<\/a>, history professor <A HREF=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Marc_B._Shapiro\">Marc B. Shapiro<\/a> says: Chaim Tchernowitz was the non-religious candidate for the post of crown rabbi of Vilna. <\/p>\n<p>He gives the most famous hespedim for <A HREF=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Yitzchak_Elchanan_Spektor\">Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor<\/a>. He functions as an Orthodox rav and <A HREF=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Beth_din\">Av Beis Din<\/a> (head of a Jewish law court) in Odessa. <\/p>\n<p>He later comes to America. He really leaves Orthodoxy.  You see pictures of him not even wearing a yarmulke. He starts teaching at the <A HREF=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jewish_Institute_of_Religion\">Jewish Institute of Religion<\/a>, started by Reform rabbi <A HREF=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Stephen_S._Wise\">Stephen S. Wise<\/a>. He has no involvement with Orthodox Jewish life.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To have the Orthodox rav of a big city and then to give it all up and become a scholar and to leave the Orthodox world is unusual. The case that comes to mind is that of the <A HREF=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Israel_Zolli\">Chief Rabbi of Rome who apostatized  after the Holocaust<\/a>. He was a strange character. He abandoned the community during the Holocaust.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bio: &#8220;TCHERNOWITZ, CHAIM (pseudonym Rav Za&#8217;ir; 1871\u20131949), talmudic scholar and Hebrew author. Tchernowitz, born in Sebesh (district of Vitebsk), Russia, studied in Lithuania and obtained semikhah from Isaac Elchanan *Spektor of Kovno in 1896. Moving to Odessa the following year, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=42390\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marc-b-shapiro"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42393,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42390\/revisions\/42393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}