יוסף יהודה לייב בלוך

Rav Yosef Yehuda Leib Bloch (21 Shevat 5620/1860–7 Cheshvan 5690/1929) was rav of Telz and rosh yeshiva of its great yeshiva — the figure who stamped Telz with the double seal it carries to this day: exacting lomdut joined to deep machshavah. Born in Raseiniai, he learned in Kelm — where Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel brought him to the Alter of Kelm, Rav Simcha Zissel Ziv — and in Volozhin, and married Chasya, eldest daughter of Rav Eliezer Gordon, rosh yeshiva of Telz. From 5644 he said shiurim in the yeshiva beside his father-in-law.

A man of Kelm in the house of Telz, he fought to bring mussar into the yeshiva’s curriculum, and the appointment of Rav Leib Chasman as mashgiach at his urging set off storms among the talmidim; for some years he left, serving as rav of Varniai and of Shadova and founding yeshivot in both — Rav Chaim Mordechai Katz, later of Telz-Cleveland, was his talmid there. On Rav Gordon’s passing in 5670/1910 he returned as rav and rosh yeshiva of Telz, and led both for twenty years. In the beit medrash he created a new vessel: the shiur daat, the weekly discourse in emunah and machshavah whose collected volumes, the Shiurei Daat, remain among the deepest works of yeshiva-world thought; his halachic shiurim were gathered as Shiurei Halachah.

As rav of the city he built a whole educational world — the Yavneh network of schools for boys and for girls, teachers’ seminaries for men and for women, a mechinah and a kollel for rabbanim — drawing criticism that the Chofetz Chaim himself deflected with his backing. He headed the Agudat HaRabbanim of Lita and stood with Agudat Yisrael. He was niftar in Telz in Cheshvan 5690; his sons carried the yeshiva — Rav Avraham Yitzchak, its last rosh yeshiva in Lita, murdered with his talmidim in the churban, and Rav Eliyahu Meir, who with Rav Chaim Mordechai Katz replanted Telz in Cleveland.