הרב יעקב יצחק רודרמן

Rav Yaakov Yitzchak Ruderman (1900–14 Tammuz 5747/1987) was the founder and rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Ner Yisroel in Baltimore, and one of the last of the roshei yeshiva who carried the Torah of Lita (Lithuania) to America. Born in Dolhinov, where his father Rav Yehuda Leib was the town’s rav, he learned in Slabodka under the Alter, Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, and under the rosh yeshiva Rav Moshe Mordechai Epstein, from whom he received semicha in 1926. The upheavals of the First World War carried him with the yeshiva through Minsk to Kremenchug — where he was once seized by kidnappers demanding ransom for his life, and saved when Rav Epstein raised a crowd in the street; a story he would retell to his talmidim decades later.

He married Faiga Kramer in 1924, and in 1930 joined the yeshiva of his father-in-law, Rav Sheftel Kramer, in New Haven, moving with it to Cleveland. In 1933 he came to Baltimore, accepting a rabbanut on condition that he be permitted to open a yeshiva — and began with six talmidim, naming the yeshiva Ner Yisroel after Rav Yisrael Salanter. He stood at its head for fifty-four years, his brother-in-law Rav Naftoli Neuberger directing its affairs, and together they built it into one of the largest yeshivot in America, raising thousands of rabbanim, mechanchim and bnei Torah. In its early years he drew Rav Shimon Schwab to say the first-year shiur.

He served on the Moetzet Gedolei HaTorah of Agudat Yisrael and chaired the rabbinic board of Torah Umesorah. His Torah is preserved in Avodat Levi, printed in his youth, and in the volumes his talmidim published after his passing — Sichot Avodat Levi, Mas’at Levi and Shiurei Avodat Levi. He was niftar on 14 Tammuz 5747 (July 11, 1987); his son-in-law Rav Shmuel Yaakov Weinberg succeeded him at the head of the yeshiva.