Nahum Rabinovitch

Nachum Eliezer Rabinovitch (נַחוּם אֱלִיעֶזֶר רָבִּינוֹבִיץּ׳; 30 April 1928 – 6 May 2020), born Norman Louis Rabinovitch, was a Canadian-Israeli Religious Zionist rabbi and posek. He headed the London School of Jewish Studies from 1971 to 1982, and the hesder yeshiva Birkat Moshe in Ma'ale Adumim from 1982 until his death. Nahum Rabinovitch was born in Montreal, Quebec to Sarah (née Weiner) and Sam Rabinovitch. After completing an eight-year course of studies under Rabbi Pinchas Hirschsprung, Rabinovitch received semicha from Montreal's Yeshivas Merkaz HaTorah in the city's first rabbinical ordination ceremony. After obtaining an honours degree in commerce from Sir George Williams College, he left for Baltimore to pursue a Master of Science degree in mathematics at Johns Hopkins University. While there, he studied at Yeshivas Ner Yisroel, where he received a second ordination from Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman. Between 1955 and 1963, Rabinovitch served as spiritual leader of the Brith Sholom Beth Israel Congregation in Charleston, South Carolina. In this role, he helped establish the city's first Jewish day school, of which he served as principal. He also held appointments as lecturer in mathematics at the College of Charleston and chaplain to the Sixth Naval District Headquarters. In 1963, he was called to serve as a community rabbi in Toronto, and assumed the pulpit of the Clanton Park Synagogue in Downsview. He completed a Ph.D. in the philosophy and history of mathematics at the University of Toronto in 1971 under the supervision of Kenneth O. May. His doctoral thesis, Probability and Statistical Inference in Ancient and Medieval Jewish Literature, was published as a monograph in 1973. Rabinovitch was appointed principal of Jews' College in early 1970, and settled in London that spring. Notable among his students at the college was Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, who has cited Rabinovitch as his primary role model. Ten years later, he accepted an offer to become rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Birkat Moshe, a hesder institution in Ma'ale Adumim.