Yosef Zvi HaLevy

Yosef Zvi HaLevy was born in 1874

HaLevy was born in 1874 in Slabodka, near Kaunas in Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire. His father was Rabbi Avraham HaLevy. He received his rabbinical ordination at the Slabodka yeshiva.

In 1891 he moved alone to Ottoman Palestine and soon married the daughter of Rabbi Naftali Herz Halevy, the Chief Rabbi of Jaffa. He studied at the yeshiva of Rabbi Mordechai Gimpel Yaffe in Yehudiya and later trained under his father-in-law. He lived for a short time in Jerusalem before returning to Jaffa.

In Jaffa he became a rabbinical judge and assisted his father-in-law. During World War I he served as rabbi of the Ashkenazi community alongside Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, and the two later set up a united rabbinate office. He was appointed head of the Tel Aviv rabbinical court.

He wrote books on the commandments tied to the Land of Israel, including a work on the sabbatical year. He won the Rav Kook Prize several times and the Israel Prize for rabbinical literature in 1958. He died in 1960 and was buried in Tiberias.