Rabbi Yitzchak Zilber

Rabbi Yitzchak Zilber - Isaac Yakovlevich Zilber, Yitzchok Yosef Tziyoni (1917-2014) - an activist of the Jewish religious underground in the USSR, founder of the Toldot Yeshurun movement to bring Russian-speaking Jews of Israel back to Judaism, and its spiritual leader.

Rabbi Zilber was born to Rav Bentzion Tziyoni Zilber - the Rabbi of Kazan - and Leah-Gitl Shapiro. He received a traditional Jewish upbringing under conditions where this was practically impossible, which had a significant influence on his entire subsequent life. His religious feeling made itself known very early. Already at the age of 5, Yitzchak dreamed of moving to Israel.

The Rav received his entire education, both religious and secular, from his father and never attended a single day of school. At 13 he began learning locksmithing, then worked as a 6th-grade locksmith in the city council's production workshops. In 1935 he studied at the evening preparatory courses of the Kazan Chemical-Technological Institute. He then enrolled there and studied for a year, but his passion for mathematics led him to transfer to the mathematics department of Kazan University. In his application to the rector, G. Kh. Kamai, he wrote of his "passionate" love of mathematics and promised to study only for "good" and "excellent" grades. In 1935 he passed the exams for Kazan University as an external student. He initially chose chemistry but switched to mathematics. He became an associate to Professor Nikolai Chebotarev, the leading algebraist. Zilber was expelled from the Chemical-Technological Institute at his own request on July 14, 1936. That same day his application to transfer to the second year of the physics-mathematics department of Kazan University is dated. Zilber kept his promise, graduating from the university with honors in 1941. After graduating, he worked as a village teacher. In 1945, Mordechai Dubinin arranged a shidduch for him, and he soon married Gita-Leah Zaidman in Kuibyshev. The Zilbers had 4 children - a son, Bentzion, and 3 daughters.

In 1951-1953 he was imprisoned in a labor camp in Tatarstan on a fabricated charge. In 1959 he was summoned for interrogation on charges of instilling Jewish upbringing in children and their refusal to write on Shabbat. After the local Communist Party cell threatened to strip him of his parental rights, he fled Kazan, later taking his entire family with him.

In 1960 he settled in Tashkent, where he became one of the central figures of the local Jewish community.

In 1972, after many years as a refusenik, he made aliyah to Israel and settled in Jerusalem, in the Sanhedria neighborhood. He initiated the creation of Torah classes for Russian-speaking Jews throughout Israel. Rabbi Zilber stood behind almost every project in Israel and abroad connected with the creation of educational centers for Russian-speaking Jews, including the yeshivot "Shvut Ami" and "Torat Chaim" in Moscow, among others. In 2000 he established the organization "Toldot Yeshurun".

Rabbi Zilber is the author of a series of books, video/audio cassettes on the weekly Torah portion, as well as an autobiography containing fascinating facts about Jewish life in the Soviet Union.

After a prolonged illness, on 8 Av 2004, Rabbi Yitzchak Zilber ascended to the Heavenly Yeshiva. More than 10,000 people accompanied him on his final journey, including the most eminent, world-renowned rabbis. He was buried on 9 Av at Har HaMenuchot in Jerusalem, next to his wife.