Mordechai Shmuel Ashkenazi

Mordechai Shmuel Ashkenazi was born in 1943 in Tel Aviv

Ashkenazi was born in Tel Aviv in 1943 to Devorah and Rabbi Moshe Ashkenazi. His maternal grandfather, Rabbi Eliezer Karasik, led the Chabad community in Tel Aviv, and his father later took over that role. His paternal grandfather, Rabbi Meir Ashkenazi, was the rabbi of Shanghai.

He studied at Chabad yeshivas in Lod, Montreal and New Jersey, and later at the central Tomchei Tmimim yeshiva in New York. There the Lubavitcher Rebbe asked him to study Jewish law beyond the regular program. After his marriage to Sima Wolpe, he settled in Kfar Chabad, was ordained by Rabbi Shneur Zalman Garelik and taught at the local yeshiva.

After Rabbi Garelik was killed in a road accident, Ashkenazi was appointed a religious judge alongside the new rabbi, Nachum Trebnik. He joined the Chabad rabbinical court in Israel and became rabbi of Kfar Chabad in 1983. He wrote a 6 volume series on the laws of Torah study, completed in 2000, and received the Rav Kook Prize.

He died of a heart attack on January 14, 2015, on his way to Tiberias, and was buried there. His son Meir succeeded him as rabbi of Kfar Chabad. A street in Kfar Chabad is named after him.