- Yehuda Amital
MKs
Date of birth = Birth date and age|1924|10|31|df=y
Year of Aliyah = 1944
Date of death =
Knesset(s) =
Party =Meimad
Former parties =
Gov't roles =Minister without Portfolio ¹
¹ Though not a Knesset Member
Rabbi Yehuda Amital, ( _he. יהודה עמיטל), was born Yehuda Klein on31 October ,1924 inHungary . He is theRosh Yeshiva ofYeshivat Har Etzion and a former member of the cabinet.When
Germany occupied Hungary in 1944, theNazis sent his entire family toAuschwitz where they were killed. Yehuda himself was sent to aLabor camp , thus surviving theHolocaust . He remained in the Labor camp for eight months, and was liberated onOctober 4 ,1944 by the Soviet Army. After his liberation he made his way toBucharest , from where he travelled to Palestine, arriving onNovember 12 , 1944.After a short stay at the
Atlit detainee camp , he made his way toJerusalem , where he studied atHebron Yeshiva , receivingsemicha from RavIsser Zalman Meltzer . He also learned with RavYaakov Moshe Charlop , a student of Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook. Around this time he joined theHaganah .After his semicha he moved to Pardes Hanna in order to learn at
Kletzk Yeshiva . While learning at the yeshiva, he married Miriam, the daughter of the Rosh Yeshiva and the granddaughter of Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer. When the yeshiva relocated toRehovot , Rav Amital followed, settling in Rehovot until he moved to Jerusalem in the 1960s.The day after the Declaration of Independence, Rav Amital's unit was mobilized. He took part in battles of
Latrun and the westernGalilee . After the war Rav Amital became a rabbinic secretary in theBeth Din of Rehovot and, two years later, he became an instructor at Yeshivat HaDarom, where he helped formulate the idea of aHesder Yeshiva .After the
Six Day War , he foundedYeshivat Har Etzion , a Hesder Yeshiva inGush Etzion . The Yeshiva opened inKfar Etzion in 1968 with 30 students. After two years the institution moved to its current location inAlon Shvut . In 1971 Rav Amital asked RavAharon Lichtenstein to join him asRosh Yeshiva .In 1988 Rav Amital founded the left-leaning religious
Meimad movement, and was elected its chairman after it became apolitical party in 1999. In 1995, Rav Amital served as aMinister without Portfolio in the government ofShimon Peres despite not being a Knesset member.At the age of 80, Rav Amital, with the intention of retiring, asked the management of Yeshivat Har Etzion to select his successors. The yeshiva chose Rabbis
Yaaqov Medan andBaruch Gigi . OnJanuary 4 ,2006 , Rav Medan and Rav Gigi were officially invested as co-roshei yeshiva alongside Rav Amital and Rav Lichtenstein.On September 25, 2008, Rav Amital officially announced his retirement in the Yeshiva, to take effect on the last day of the Jewish month of Tishrei, in the year 5769 (October 28, 2008). He also announced that Rav Mosheh Lichtenstein, the son of his co-Rosh Yeshiva Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, would assume the position as the fourth Rosh Yeshiva on that same day.
Rav Amital continues to be a prominent public figure in Israel, with a broad impact on matters of religious and national concern. His students and disciples are leading figures in many walks of life. He has developed an educational philosophy which combines deep faithfulness to tradition and ethical responsibility to society at large with commitment to the moral and spiritual flourishing of each individual. He has also laid great emphasis on respectful disagreement among opposing views. He is one of the leading Rabbinic expositors of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook, and has emphasized the broadly univeralist and ethical dimensions of those teachings.
External links
* [http://www.haretzion.org Yeshivat Har Etzion]
* [http://www.meimad.org.il Meimad]
* [http://www.edah.org/backend/JournalArticle/BRILL_5_2.pdf Alan Brill, "Worlds Destroyed, Worlds Rebuilt: The Religious Thought of R. Yehudah Amital"]
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