E-Lectures Glossary


Rabbi Moshe Feinstein

Moshe Feinstein was born in Uzda, Belorussia in 1895. His father Rabbi David Feinstein was the grandson of Rabbi Abraham, brother of the GRA and author of Beer Hagolah (a list of citations for the Shulkhan Aruch that appear in what is considered the standard addition). He studied with his father and with al local melamed until he was twelve when he went to that yeshiva of rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer in Slutzk and studied with rabbi Pesach Pruskin. Feinstein was first appointed rabbi at Uzda in 1916 in order to avoid getting drafted, and became rabbi of Lublin 1921. He married Feige Gittel, daughter of the Rabbi Yechiel of Kopolia, and they had three children before they moved to the United States. Once Feinstein arrived in New York (1937) he joined -- and soon became head of -- a rabbinical school (Mesivta Tiferes Yerushalaim).
Rabbi Feinstein, was known throughout the Orthodox Jewish world as a great authority on Jewish Law. He wrote hundreds of responses to questions of Jewish Law, many of them were collected in eight volumes titled Igros Moshe. He also wrote comments to several tractates of the Talmud. He died in 1986.


This page is part of the glossary of the Goldstein-Goren International Center for Jewish Thought
        Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel