Shmuel Rabinovitch

Shmuel Rabinovitch was born in 1970 in Jerusalem

Shmuel Rabinovitch was born in Jerusalem on 4 April 1970 and grew up there. His father, Rabbi Chaim Yehuda Rabinovitch, was a rabbinic judge and a Chabad Hasid. He studied at the Kol Torah yeshiva.

He did a shortened military service in the Military Rabbinate. He then became a regional rabbi in southwest Jerusalem.

He became Rabbi of the Western Wall after the death of Rabbi Meir Yehuda Getz, and in 2000 he was also made responsible for the Wall and its plaza. He escorts visiting heads of state, and twice a year his staff collect the prayer notes from the Wall and bury them on the Mount of Olives. He chairs the Western Wall Heritage Foundation and has served on public committees, including one on burial licensing.

He has kept gender separation at the Wall and opposed the prayer of Women of the Wall. He has faced criticism from extreme Haredi groups and from Reform and Conservative Jews. In 2021 a report said he had failed the Chief Rabbinate exams, and the deputy attorney general said his ordination and appointment were lawful.

He wrote the two-volume Sheilos u'Teshuvos Shaarei Tzion on Jewish law at the holy sites, and Minhagei HaKotel. He is a father of 8 and lives in Jerusalem's Ezrat Torah neighborhood.