הרב יצחק טוביה וייס

Rav Yitzchak Tuvia Weiss (16 Elul 5686/26 August 1926–2 Av 5782/30 July 2022) was the Gaavad of the Edah HaChareidit in Yerushalayim and rosh yeshiva of Chochmat HaTorah in Modiin Illit. He was born in Pezinok, near Bratislava in Czechoslovakia — today Slovakia — as Tibor Weiss, to Rikel and Shlomo Weiss, a timber merchant. In 5699/1939, at twelve years old, he was saved on a Kindertransport arranged by Aron Grunhut and Sir Nicholas Winton, reaching London alone at the end of May, after Shavuot, with his family left behind. A British woman took him into her house, and there he kept the Shabbat of his bar mitzvah; his father had sent him a pair of tefillin through the Red Cross, and by the time they reached him neither of his parents was alive, both murdered by the Nazis. He was taken in by the Sassover Rebbe, Rav Simcha Rubin of London.

He learned in Yeshivat Torat Emet in Stamford Hill, known as Schneider’s Yeshiva, under Rav Moshe Yehuda Schneider; a fellow talmid there was Rav Moshe Sternbuch, who would later serve beside him as Raavad of Yerushalayim. After his marriage he learned in the Gateshead Kollel under Rav Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, and when Rav Dessler went up to Eretz Yisrael he was appointed one of the men entrusted with running the kollel. Some years later he returned to London as a maggid shiur in Yeshivat HaRamah under Rav Elyakim Schlesinger. In 5727/1967 he moved to Antwerp, where he lived some thirty-seven years: maggid shiur in Yeshivat Etz Chaim in Wilrijk, dayan of the Antwerp beit din of the Machzikei Hadat community, and rav of the beit midrash of the chasidim of Gur in the city.

On 14 Tammuz 5763/2003 he began to serve as Gaavad of the Edah HaChareidit, after the passing of his predecessor Rav Yisrael Moshe Dushinsky, and with the post he took on the dress of old Yerushalayim. Each Thursday night he gave a private shiur in halacha in his home for rabbanim of the city and for talmidim of his from London. In 5772/2012 a yeshiva named Pe’er HaTorah was opened with him at its head; two years later it passed to the leadership of Rav Peretz Meirson and was renamed Chochmat HaTorah, with Rav Weiss remaining rosh yeshiva. In 5779/2019 a collection of his chiddushim on Bereishit and Shemot was published under the title Shaarei Tuviah.

He married three times, and from his first wife he had a son and three daughters. In 5782 an infection took hold in his leg; after a stay in Hadassah Ein Kerem and a month at home it worsened, and he was brought back to the hospital, where he was niftar on the night of Shabbat, 2 Av 5782/30 July 2022, at ninety-five. Tens of thousands accompanied his levayah in Yerushalayim on Sunday, 3 Av. His son, Rav Shlomo Zalman, was appointed to fill his father’s place in his shul.