Elazar Shach

Elazar Shach was born in 1898 in Vabalninkas

Shach was born in Vabalninkas in northern Lithuania. His father, Ezriel, was a grain and flour merchant. His mother, Batsheva, came from the Levitan family of rabbis.

In 1909 he began studying at the yeshiva in Panevėžys, and in 1913 he moved to the Knesses Yisrael yeshiva in Slabodka. During World War I he lived in hard conditions and in 1915 went to study at the yeshiva in Slutsk. There he grew close to Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer, who gave him rabbinical ordination.

In 1923 he married Guttel, a niece of Rabbi Meltzer, and he taught at the yeshiva in Kletsk. In 1934 he became head of the Novardok yeshiva. In early 1940 he chose to move to Mandatory Palestine rather than the United States.

In Israel he taught at the Lomzha Yeshiva in Petah Tikva, and from 1954 he was a dean of the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak. From 1970 Lithuanian Haredim regarded him as the head of their community. He headed the Council of Torah Sages and founded the newspaper Yated Neeman.

In 1984 he backed the new Shas party, and in 1988 he broke with Agudat Yisrael and founded Degel HaTorah. His remarks on secular Israelis, Sephardim and the Holocaust drew public criticism. He retired from politics around 1995 and died in 2001.