Shneur Kotler

Rabbi Shneur Kotler
Kotler as a young man in the 1940s, while studying at the Hevron yeshiva in Jerusalem
Position	Rosh yeshiva
Yeshiva	Beis Medrash Govoha
Began	1962
Ended	1982
Predecessor	Rabbi Aharon Kotler
Successor	Rabbis Malkiel Kotler, Yerucham Olshin, Dovid Schustal, Yisroel Neuman
Personal details
Birth name	Yosef Chaim Shneur Kotler
Born	1918 Slutsk, Russia
Died	24 June 1982(1982-06-24) (aged 63–64) Boston, Massachusetts
Buried	Har HaMenuchos, Jerusalem
Denomination	Orthodox
Parents	Rabbi Aharon Kotler, Rivka Chana Perel Meltzer
Spouse	Rischel Friedman (d. July 2015)
Children	Meir Kotler, Aryeh Malkiel Kotler, Isser Zalman Kotler, Yitzchak Shraga Kotler, Aaron Kotler, Sara Yehudis Schustal, Batsheva Krupenia, Esther Reich, Baila Hinda Ribner
Alma mater	Hevron yeshiva

Yosef Chaim Shneur Kotler (1918 – 24 June 1982) was an Orthodox rabbi and rosh yeshiva of Beth Medrash Govoha (also known as the Lakewood Yeshiva) in Lakewood, New Jersey from 1962 to 1982. During his tenure, he developed the Lithuanian-style, Haredi but non-Hasidic yeshiva into the largest post-graduate Torah institution in the world. He also established Lakewood-style kollels in 30 cities, and pioneered the establishment of community kollels in which Torah scholars study during the morning and afternoon hours and engage in community outreach during the evenings. Upon his death, he had served as the Lakewood rosh yeshiva for exactly the same amount of time as had his father, Rabbi Aharon Kotler, the founding rosh yeshiva of Beth Medrash Govoha: nineteen years, seven months, and one day.

He was born in Slutsk, Russia, to Rabbi Aharon Kotler and his wife, Rivka Chana Perel, the daughter of Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer, Rav of that town. Of his parents' children, only he and his sister, Sarah, survived infancy. He was named after his father's father, Shneur Zalman Pines.

Shneur was educated in his youth by his father. He later learned in the Kaminetz yeshiva in Poland and became one of the leading students of Rabbi Baruch Ber Leibowitz.

In 1940, when most yeshivas in Lithuania fled to Vilna—including the yeshiva in Kletzk (to where Rabbi Aharon Kotler had moved the Slutsk yeshiva)—Shneur also came to Vilna. There he became engaged to Rischel, the daughter of Malkiel Friedman. He was able to escape Europe and get to Mandatory Palestine in 1940. While his fiance made refuge in Shanghai with the Mirrer bnei torah. Which was where she lived, until their reunion, and marriage in America after the war. (His father escaped to Japan and from there to America in 1941.) Throughout the war years, he studied in the Eitz Chaim Yeshiva led by his grandfather, Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer, who had also emigrated to Palestine, and attended shiurim given by Rabbi Yechezkel Sarna, rosh yeshiva of the Hevron yeshiva in Jerusalem, and Rabbi Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik, the Brisker Rav.