Aharon Lichtenstein

Aharon Lichtenstein was born in 1933 in 12th arrondissement of Paris

Lichtenstein was born in Paris to Yechiel Lichtenstein and Bluma née Schwartz. In 1940, months after the Nazis occupied France, his family fled to the United States, where he grew up.

He studied at Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin under Yitzchak Hutner and with Ahron Soloveichik. His main Torah teacher was Joseph B. Soloveitchik at Yeshiva University, who ordained him and whose daughter Tovah he married in 1960. He also earned a PhD in English literature at Harvard University in 1957.

After teaching and heading a kollel at Yeshiva University, he moved to Israel in 1971 to lead Yeshivat Har Etzion alongside Yehuda Amital. He lived in Jerusalem and later moved to Alon Shvut, near the yeshiva. He was also rector of Herzog College.

He held a worldview that combined Torah life with elements of modernity, in the line of Centrist Orthodoxy. He supported the hesder track, which combines Torah study and army service. His Talmud lectures were published in volumes edited by his students.

He received the Israel Prize for Torah literature in 2014. He died in Alon Shvut in 2015.