Rabbi Yitzhak Zilber ( Isaak Yakovlevich Zilber , Yitzhok Yosef Tsiyuni ; 1917 , Kazan - 2004 , Jerusalem ) is an activist of the Jewish religious underground in the Soviet Union , the founder of the Toldot Yeshurun movement for the return of Russian-speaking Jews of Israel to Judaism and its spiritual leader.
| Yitzhak Zilber | |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | |
| Place of Birth | |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
| A country | |
| Occupation | |
Rabbi Zilber was born in 1917 in Kazan to Rabbi Bentsion Chaim Tsiyuni (Zilber) - the rabbi of Kazan - and Lei-Hitl Shapiro. He received a traditional Jewish upbringing in conditions when it was almost impossible, which had a significant impact on his entire subsequent life. Religious feeling made itself felt very early. Already at the age of 5, Yitzhak dreamed of leaving for Palestine . All his primary education, both religious and secular, was received by his rabbi from his father and did not attend school for a single day. At the age of 13 he entered the study of plumbing, then he worked as a mechanic of the 6th category in the production workshops of the City Council. In 1935, he studied at the evening preparatory courses of the Kazan Institute of Chemical Technology. Then he entered, studied there for a year, but his passion for mathematics forced him to go to the mathematical department of Kazan University. In a statement addressed to the rector G. Kh. Kamai, he wrote about his “passionate” passion for mathematics and promised to study only “good” and “excellent”. In 1935 he passed exams in absentia at Kazan University . Initially, I chose chemistry , but changed it to mathematics . He became an assistant professor to Professor Nikolai Chebotaryov , the largest algebraist . Zilber was expelled from the KHTI at his own request on July 14, 1936. On the same day his application for transfer to the second year of physical education at KSU was also dated. Zilber kept his promise, he graduated with honors from the university in 1941. After graduation, he worked as a rural teacher. In 1945, Mordechai Dubin found Rabbi Yitzhak's bride, and he soon marries Gita-Lei Zaydman in Kuibyshev . The Zilbers gave birth to 4 children - the son of Ben Zion and 3 daughters.
In 1951 - 1953 he was in a camp in the Tatar Autonomous Republic on charges of illegal possession of bonds. In 1959 he was summoned for interrogation on charges of instilling in children Jewish education and their refusal to write on Shabbat . After the threat of the local cell of the Communist Party to deprive him of his parental rights, he fled from Kazan, taking with him the whole family later.
In 1960, he settled in Tashkent , where he became one of the central figures in the local Jewish community.
In 1972, after many years of denial, he finally repatriated to Israel and settled in Jerusalem in the area of Sanhedria . He initiated the creation of Torah lessons for Russian-speaking Jews throughout Israel. Rabbi Zilber stood for almost all the projects in Israel and abroad related to the creation of training centers for Russian-speaking Jews, including the Yeshiva Shvut Ami , Torat Haim in Moscow , Shavei Gola and others. In 2000, he created the organization “ Toldot Yeshurun ” [1] .
Rabbi Zilber is the author of a series of books, video and audio tapes on the weekly chapters of the Torah , as well as an autobiography that provides interesting facts related to Jewish life in the Soviet Union.
The rabbi died after a long illness on 8 August 2004 (5764). On his last journey he was escorted by more than 10,000 people, including the largest rabbis of world renown. He was buried on August 9 in the Jerusalem cemetery of Ghar-amenuhot near his wife.