הרב משה שטרנבוך

Rav Moshe Sternbuch (born 24 Shevat 5686/8 February 1926) is the Ra’avad of the Edah HaChareidis in Yerushalayim, a posek and a rosh yeshiva. He was born in London to Asher Sternbuch and to Devorah, daughter of Rav Shlomo Zalman Pines, author of Panas Shlomo, and he is a descendant of the Vilna Gaon. His parents’ home took in the rabbanim who came to London for their yeshivot; Rav Elchonon Wasserman stayed with them, and after learning with the boy said that he was a davar sheyeish bo mamash. Rav Yechezkel Abramsky tested him every Shabbat and said he would one day be a moreh hora’ah, and before long he was called the Londoner Illui. He was orphaned of his father at nine.

He learned for ten years in Yeshivat Torat Emet in Stamford Hill under Rav Moshe Schneider, together with Rav Bezalel Rakow, later the Gateshead Rov, and Rav Yitzchok Tuvia Weiss, later his colleague in the Edah HaChareidis. When the family left London in the war years he shared a room with Rav Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, author of Michtav Me’Eliyahu. As the danger of invasion grew his mother sought passage for him to America and asked Rav Elya Lopian whether to let him board the ship; in the end the ship sailed without him, and went down with three hundred children aboard. He came to Eretz Yisrael and learned in Yeshivat Chevron, drawing close to Rav Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik of Brisk and to Rav Dov Berish Weidenfeld of Tchebin, who later gave a haskamah to his Moadim uZmanim; he learned b’chavruta with the Gerrer Rebbes Rav Yisrael Alter and Rav Pinchas Menachem Alter.

At twenty-seven he became engaged to Yaffa, daughter of the industrialist Yaakov Schechter, who was close to the Chazon Ish — and the Chazon Ish himself was the shadchan. He lived in Yerushalayim and served as rosh Yeshivat HaMasmidim, and in 5714/1954 was among the askanim who founded the Beit L’Pleitot orphanage. He then lived some twenty years in Bnei Brak near Yeshivat Ponevezh, where he wrote the Moadim uZmanim series. At the urging of Rav Yechezkel Abramsky he set aside the chance of an elite kollel in Bnei Brak and headed instead a kollel and a kehillah in Rosh HaAyin, founding there Beit Olot, a home for immigrant girls. Afterward he served as rav of a chareidi kehillah in Johannesburg. He lives today in Har Nof in Yerushalayim, where he founded a Torah center named for the Gra, holding a beit midrash and a beit knesset in which he is the rav.

In 5749/1989 he was appointed to the beit din of the Edah HaChareidis, and from 5763/2003 he serves as its Ra’avad. In 5752/1992 he began publishing his teshuvot in the series Teshuvot v’Hanhagot, of which eight volumes have appeared. His sefarim run to the moadim, to the parshiyot in Taam vaDaat and Chochmah vaDaat, to masechtot of Shas in Pshat v’Iyun, and to hilchot taharah and chinuch habanim; his weekly shiur, given in the yeshiva he founded in 5773/2013 in Ramot and moved in 5778 to Ramat Beit Shemesh Gimmel, is printed in a weekly pamphlet and was collected in 5781 into Biurim v’Hanhagot on the Torah. In Iyar 5782 he founded the Teshuvot v’Hanhagot kollel to teach hora’ah in his way. On his hundredth birthday, 8 February 2026, he received a letter of blessing from Charles III, king of the United Kingdom, as a British citizen who had reached a hundred years.