Death of influential rabbi marks turning point for Israeli ultra-Orthodox
Both ultra-Orthodox and secular Israelis were drawn to Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, whose Torah scholarship brought him influence he never sought.
The death of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky on March 18 marked a turning point in Israel’s religious life. The rabbi held sway over all sectors of religious society in Israel and his death has serious implications for ultra-Orthodox politics and beyond.
His funeral was unlike any other in Israeli history. The crowds that saw Kanievsky laid to rest March 20 were not just mourning the loss of a brilliant rabbinic mind, but also the end of an era.
Kanievsky, 94, was the most senior leader of the entire ultra-Orthodox sector. His words had an impact on the entire community, in Israel and abroad, including groups outside his non-Hassidic sector, known as Lithuanian. But that era, when a single rabbi held near-mystical sway over such widespread swathes of the population, has come to an abrupt end.
Unlike his predecessors the late Rabbi Shteinman, who headed the prestigious Ponevezh Yeshiva, or Kanievsky’s late brother-in-law Rabbi Eliashiv, who served as a judge for the Chief Rabbinate, Kanievsky himself held no public position. He did not head a yeshiva or even teach. He became a great Torah scholar by spending over 70 years studying, first as a seminary student at Hazon Ish Kollel in Bnei Brak and later in his tiny three-room apartment on Rashbam Street, where he lived since he married his wife Batsheva.
