Rabbi Yehuda Leib Tsirelson רבי יהודה לייב צירלסון
chief rabbi of Bessarabia; first president of Agudat Yisrael
He was born in 1859 at Kozelets in the Chernigov region, into a rabbi's family; at twenty he became rabbi of Priluki. In 1908 the community of Kishinev—five years after the pogrom—called him, and he remained rabbi of the city to the end of his life.
When Bessarabia passed to Romania he became chief rabbi of the province and a deputy of the Romanian parliament, later a senator—and spoke there for the Jews. In 1912 he was among the founders of Agudat Yisrael, and at its first Great Assembly in Vienna in 1923 he was elected president—the first head of the movement. His responsa are the Gevul Yehuda and the Atzei HaLevanon; he wrote poems and articles in Russian as well.
When in the summer of 1941 German and Romanian troops entered Kishinev he died in the city; some speak of a bomb, others of a shooting, and no one names the day with certainty. Here stands the year.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- The Gevul Yehuda and the Atzei HaLevanon—responsa — the answers and the position
Scholarship
- The minutes of the Great Assembly of Agudat Yisrael, Vienna 1923 — the election as president
- The standard reference works and encyclopedias — Kozelets 1859, Kishinev from 1908, the parliament, the death in the summer of 1941 and the two readings
Basis: documents and evidence.