Religionנטע שילר

Nota Schiller

Nota Schiller was an American-born Israeli Orthodox rabbi and rosh yeshiva of Ohr Somayach in Jerusalem, a yeshiva for baalei teshuva.

1937 to 2025Cofounding Ohr Somayach yeshivaHeading Ohr Somayach in JerusalemThe baal teshuva movement

Died: 8 March 2025, Jerusalem
Occupation: rabbi
Education: Yeshivas Ner Yisroel, Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin
Founded: Ohr Somayach (1970)

Nota Schiller was born in 1937 in Brooklyn

Nota Schiller was born in 1937 and grew up in Brooklyn, New York.

He studied at the high school of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin. He then graduated from Yeshivas Ner Yisroel in Baltimore.

In 1972 he founded Shma Yisrael Yeshiva together with rabbis Noah Weinberg, Mendel Weinbach and Yaakov Rosenberg. The yeshiva taught young Jewish men with little or no background in Jewish studies. After Weinberg and Rosenberg left, it was renamed Ohr Somayach, after a commentary by Meir Simcha of Dvinsk.

As head of the yeshiva, Schiller held that even students returning to religion should focus on classic rabbinic texts, mainly the Babylonian Talmud. He led the yeshiva on that basis.

His son, Rabbi Nachshon Schiller, heads Yeshivat Ohr Somayach's sister institution Ohr Shmuel in Jerusalem. Schiller died on March 8, 2025.