Israel Abraham Rabin

Israel Abraham Rabin was born in 1882 in Khmelnytskyi

Rabin was born in 1882 in Proskurov in the Russian Empire, today Khmelnytskyi in Ukraine, to a family of rabbis. He received a traditional education and was ordained as a rabbi in Lithuania at a young age.

He then studied history and Semitic languages in Germany and Switzerland. In 1907 he earned a doctorate from the University of Bern.

In 1909 he came to the Land of Israel and taught at the Ezra teachers' seminary in Jerusalem, joining the Hebrew Language Committee as one of its first members. In 1911 he moved to Odessa to head the Yavne yeshiva, and from 1914 he lived in Germany, lecturing at Giessen and from 1919 at Frankfurt. From 1921 he taught at the rabbinical seminary in Breslau, published a scholarly edition of the Mekhilta in 1931, and became the seminary's rabbi in 1933.

He was active in the Zionist movement and Mizrachi. In 1935, after Hitler came to power, he settled in Haifa, where he ran the Netzach Israel school and later headed the city's religious council. He died in 1951 and was buried in Haifa; his children included professors Chaim Rabin, Michael Rabin and Miriam Ben-Peretz.