Yitzchak Dovid Grossman

Yitzchak Dovid Grossman was born in 1946 in Jerusalem

Grossman was born in Jerusalem on 15 September 1946 to a Hasidic family. His father, Rabbi Yisrael Grossman, headed yeshivas in Lod and Kfar Chabad. He grew up in Mea Shearim.

He studied at the Slabodka yeshiva in Bnei Brak and was ordained as a rabbi in 1966. In 1967 he married Esther, and they have 5 children.

In 1968 he moved to Migdal HaEmek to do religious outreach. He worked with young people involved in crime and drugs, meeting them in pubs and discos, and became known as the Disco Rabbi. He became the town's Chief Rabbi and in 1972 founded Migdal Ohr, which started with 18 students.

In 1974 he started a program of religious study for prisoners. He also helped absorb immigrants in the 1990s and founded the youth movement Or Yisraeli in 2003. In 2008 he was elected to the Chief Rabbinate Council.

During the 2006 Lebanon War he hosted paratroopers at the Migdal Ohr campus. He received the Israel Prize in 2004 and the Presidential Medal of Distinction in 2014.