Dov Lior

Dov Lior was born in 1933 in Jarosław

Dov Leinwand was born in 1933 in Jarosław, Poland, to a Belz Hasidic family. During World War II his family fled to the Soviet Union, where both his parents died. In 1944 he was placed in an orphanage, and after the war he reached the American zone in Germany and began to learn Hebrew.

In 1947 he was a passenger on the Exodus, which was sent back to Europe. In 1948 he reached the Land of Israel on the ship Negba, a few weeks before independence. He studied at the Bnei Akiva yeshiva in Kfar HaRoeh and then at Mercaz HaRav under Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook.

He later became rabbi of Kfar HaRoeh and changed his surname to Lior. In 1976 he moved to Kiryat Arba to head the Nir yeshiva with Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, and in 1987 he also became the town's rabbi. He served as head of the Beersheba Rabbinical Court and led the council of rabbis of the settlements.

Lior founded the Tekumah party with other rabbis. His rulings and statements on Arabs, Hebron and wars drew public criticism, and in the late 1980s the Attorney General blocked his election to the Supreme Rabbinical Council. He married Bitya Goldberger in 1960, who died in 1988, and later married Esther.