Reuven Katz

Reuven Katz was born in 1880 in Halshany

Reuven Katz was born in 1880 in Halshany, then in the Vilna region. His father, Shimon, was a scholar who worked in trade. As a boy he knew the tractates Shabbat and Bava Kamma, and he became known as the prodigy of Olshany.

He studied at several yeshivas, including Mir, the Radin yeshiva of the Chafetz Chaim and Slabodka. In 1897 he was among the founding students of the Slutsk Yeshiva. In 1903 he joined the study group of Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski in Vilna, married Reichel, daughter of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Maskileison, and later received rabbinic ordination.

After his father-in-law died in 1905, he became rabbi of Seleb near Minsk, and in 1909 rabbi of Indura near Grodno. During World War I he led local relief work, including Joint funds. He published Degel Reuven and in 1923 became rabbi of Stawiski.

In 1929 the Chafetz Chaim sent him to the United States to raise funds, and he served as a rabbi in Bayonne, New Jersey. In 1932 he moved to Petah Tikva as its chief rabbi and head of the rabbinical court. He also led the city's Lomza Yeshiva and sat on the Chief Rabbinate Council.

In 1950 he received the Rabbi Kook Prize for rabbinic literature. He died on November 3, 1963. Streets named Degel Reuven in Jerusalem and Petah Tikva recall him.