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David Weiss Halivni
David Weiss Halivni (Hebrew: דָּוִד וַיְיס הַלִּבְנִי; September 27, 1927 – June 28, 2022) was a European-born American-Israeli rabbi, scholar in the domain of Jewish sciences, and professor of Talmud. He served as Reish Metivta of the Institute of Traditional Judaism, the Union for Traditional Judaism's rabbinical school.
David Weiss was born on September 27, 1927, in Kobyletska Poliana (Кобилецька Поляна, Poiana Cobilei, Gyertyánliget) in Carpathian Ruthenia, then in Czechoslovakia (now in Rakhiv Raion, Ukraine). His parents separated when he was 4 years old, and he grew up in the home of his maternal grandfather, Rabbi Isaiah (Shaye) Weiss, a Hasidic Talmud scholar in Sighet, Romania.
His grandfather began teaching him at age 5, and he was regarded as a prodigy; he received semicha (rabbinic ordination) at age 15 from Rabbi Yekutiel Yehuda Gross of the town's yeshiva.
In March 1944, German troops arrived in Sighet to deport the town's Jewish population to concentration camps. Weiss, then 16 years old, was sent to Auschwitz along with his grandfather, mother, and sister; his father, Ephraim Bezalel Viderman, was murdered by the Nazis elsewhere. The remaining members of his family at Auschwitz were murdered, leaving Weiss as the sole survivor of his family at age 16. One week after he arrived at Auschwitz, Weiss transferred to the forced labor camps at Gross-Rosen, Wolfsberg, and then Mauthausen, where he worked in a munitions plant.
When he arrived in the United States at the age of 18 after his liberation, he was placed in a Jewish orphanage, where he created a stir by challenging the kashrut of the institution. A social worker introduced him to Rabbi Saul Lieberman, a leading Talmudist at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) in New York, who recognized his brilliance and took him under his wing. Weiss later studied with Lieberman for many years at the JTS.
Initially, he studied in Yeshiva Chaim Berlin under Yitzchak Hutner and was allowed to forgo lectures because of his advanced standing. Over the next decade, he completed high school; earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Brooklyn College; a master's degree in philosophy from NYU, and his doctorate in Talmud at JTS.
He married Zipporah Hager, a descendant of the Vizhnitzer Rebbes, in 1953, and the couple settled in Manhattan. They had three children: Baruch (Bernard), Ephraim, and Yeshiahu. Halivni had six grandchildren: Avidan, Hadar, Daniel, Rebecca, Benjamin (Jamin), and Eliana.
Weiss, which is German for white, later changed his name to "Halivni," the Hebrew word for white. He died on June 18, 2022, at his home in Jerusalem at the age of 94.
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David Weiss Halivni
David Weiss Halivni (Hebrew: דָּוִד וַיְיס הַלִּבְנִי; September 27, 1927 – June 28, 2022) was a European-born American-Israeli rabbi, scholar in the domain of Jewish sciences, and professor of Talmud. He served as Reish Metivta of the Institute of Traditional Judaism, the Union for Traditional Judaism's rabbinical school.
David Weiss was born on September 27, 1927, in Kobyletska Poliana (Кобилецька Поляна, Poiana Cobilei, Gyertyánliget) in Carpathian Ruthenia, then in Czechoslovakia (now in Rakhiv Raion, Ukraine). His parents separated when he was 4 years old, and he grew up in the home of his maternal grandfather, Rabbi Isaiah (Shaye) Weiss, a Hasidic Talmud scholar in Sighet, Romania.
His grandfather began teaching him at age 5, and he was regarded as a prodigy; he received semicha (rabbinic ordination) at age 15 from Rabbi Yekutiel Yehuda Gross of the town's yeshiva.
In March 1944, German troops arrived in Sighet to deport the town's Jewish population to concentration camps. Weiss, then 16 years old, was sent to Auschwitz along with his grandfather, mother, and sister; his father, Ephraim Bezalel Viderman, was murdered by the Nazis elsewhere. The remaining members of his family at Auschwitz were murdered, leaving Weiss as the sole survivor of his family at age 16. One week after he arrived at Auschwitz, Weiss transferred to the forced labor camps at Gross-Rosen, Wolfsberg, and then Mauthausen, where he worked in a munitions plant.
When he arrived in the United States at the age of 18 after his liberation, he was placed in a Jewish orphanage, where he created a stir by challenging the kashrut of the institution. A social worker introduced him to Rabbi Saul Lieberman, a leading Talmudist at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) in New York, who recognized his brilliance and took him under his wing. Weiss later studied with Lieberman for many years at the JTS.
Initially, he studied in Yeshiva Chaim Berlin under Yitzchak Hutner and was allowed to forgo lectures because of his advanced standing. Over the next decade, he completed high school; earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Brooklyn College; a master's degree in philosophy from NYU, and his doctorate in Talmud at JTS.
He married Zipporah Hager, a descendant of the Vizhnitzer Rebbes, in 1953, and the couple settled in Manhattan. They had three children: Baruch (Bernard), Ephraim, and Yeshiahu. Halivni had six grandchildren: Avidan, Hadar, Daniel, Rebecca, Benjamin (Jamin), and Eliana.
Weiss, which is German for white, later changed his name to "Halivni," the Hebrew word for white. He died on June 18, 2022, at his home in Jerusalem at the age of 94.