Yisroel Belsky
| Rabbi Chaim Yisroel HaLevi Belsky |
|
|---|---|
| Born | August 22, 1938 |
| Died | January 28, 2016 |
| Occupation | Rosh Yeshiva, Posek |
Chaim Yisroel Belsky (Chaim Yisroel HaLevi Belsky) (August 22, 1938 – January 28, 2016) was an American rabbi and posek of Orthodox Judaism and Haredi Judaism who resided in Brooklyn, New York. He was one of the roshei yeshivas at Yeshiva Torah Vodaas, and rabbi of the summer camp network run by Agudath Israel of America.
Rabbi Belsky served for "more than 28 years" as a senior kashrut advisor to the OU.
Belsky faced criticism for his statements in reaction to sexual abuse accusations made against a Jewish camp counselor.
Belsky received his semicha from Yeshiva Torah Vodaas, in Brooklyn, NY, in 1962, and from Rabbi Moshe Feinstein in 1965. He also studied at Beth Medrash Elyon for a number of years. His Rosh Yeshiva was Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky.
He served as a member of a Beth din under, successively, Rabbis Yitzchok Isaac Liebes, Baruch Leizerowski, and Herschel Kurzrock. Some events that he addressed with this beth din were: the aftermath of the 9/11 World Trade Center attack and freeing its widows from agunah status, New York City tap water, human-hair wigs from India, surrogate motherhood, and a kashrus scandal in Monsey.
His first kashrus position was with the Kof-K. He served with the Orthodox Union starting in 1987, and was eventually described as one of "the chief experts for the Orthodox Union, which certifies more than 600,000 products as kosher." In 2004, Belsky ruled that water that might contain microscopic nonkosher organisms is kosher even if it is unfiltered. The same year he ruled that "gruesome" slaughtering of animals at Agriprocessors, then the largest glatt kosher meat producer in the United States, appeared not to violate kosher laws as long as the animal "felt nothing". He later ruled on a kashrus scandal surrounding Doheny Meats, which had been videoed violating the laws of kashrus, saying that food that had been sold by Doheny prior to the scandal could still be considered kosher.
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