Yosef Shalom Eliashiv

Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv
Rabbi Elyashiv at home
Personal details
Born	(1910-04-10)April 10, 1910 Nisan 1, 5670 AM (Hebrew calendar) Šiauliai, Russian Empire (present-day Lithuania)
Died	July 18, 2012(2012-07-18) (aged 102) Tamuz 28, 5772 AM (Hebrew calendar) Jerusalem
Nationality	Israel
Denomination	Orthodox Judaism
Parents	Rabbi Avraham Elyashiv Chaya Moussa Elyashiv
Children	Moshe Shlomo Avraham Binyamin Yitzchak Batsheva Esther (wife of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky) (d. 2011) Sarah Rachel (wife of Rabbi Yosef Yisraelson) Dina Ettel (wife of Rabbi Elchonon Berlin) Shoshana (wife of Rabbi Yitzchok Zilberstein) (d. 1999) Leah (wife of Rabbi Ezriel Auerbach) (d. 2010) Gittel (wife of Rabbi Binyomin Rimmer) Rivkah (d. 1948)
Signature

Yosef Shalom Elyashiv (Hebrew: יוֹסֵף שָׁלוֹם אֶלְיָשִׁיב‎‎; April 10, 1910 – July 18, 2012) was a Haredi rabbi and posek (arbiter of Jewish law) who lived in Jerusalem, Israel. Until his death at the age of 102, Rabbi Elyashiv was the paramount leader of both Israel and the Diaspora Lithuanian-Haredi community, and many Ashkenazi Jews regarded him as the posek ha-dor, the contemporary leading authority on halakha, or Jewish law.

He spent most of his days engaged in Talmudical study, and delivered lectures in Talmud and Shulkhan Arukh at a local synagogue in the Meah Shearim area in Jerusalem where he lived. He received supplicants from all over the world and answered the most complex Halakhic inquiries.

Rabbi Elyashiv was the son of Rabbi Avraham Elyashiv (Erener) of Gomel, Belarus, and Chaya Musha, daughter of the kabbalist Rabbi Shlomo Elyashiv (d. 1925) of Šiauliai, Lithuania. Born in 1910 at Šiauliai, Yosef Shalom Elyashiv arrived with his parents in Mandatory Palestine in 1922 aged 12. He was an only child, born to his parents after 17 years of marriage. Originally his father's surname was Erener, but his father adopted his father-in-law's surname in order to gain a certificate to enter the British Mandate of Palestine.