Dovid Shmidel

Dovid Shmidel was born in 1934 in Vienna

Shmidel was born in Vienna on April 2, 1934, the only child of Pinchas and Miriam Shmidel, a Hungarian family. In 1939 he moved with his family to the Land of Israel.

He studied at the Slabodka yeshiva in Bnei Brak, where he grew close to the Chazon Ish, and later learned under Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel. He then studied at the Be'er Yaakov yeshiva under Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Shapira. He married Aliza, a teacher of religious studies, and the couple had 8 daughters and a son.

In 1956 he took part in the struggle against excavations at the Tomb of Maimonides in Tiberias. From the mid-1970s he headed Asra Kadisha, which organized protests against digging in burial areas. In 1979 he was arrested over protests at a military camp on Mount Shenan.

His tenure saw public disputes within the Haredi community, including over a housing project in Ramat Beit Shemesh. In 2013 Rabbis Chaim Kanievsky and Nissim Karelitz issued a letter condemning the organization's activists. For decades he also headed a kollel in Tiberias, which later moved to Komemiyut, and he published Torah writings.

His health worsened in December 2025. He died in Bnei Brak on May 11, 2026.