Moshe Meiselman

Meiselman was born to Harry Meiselman, a dental surgeon, and Shulamit Soloveitchik, a teacher and Jewish school principal who attended New York University and Radcliffe College. On his father's side, he is a descendent of the Hasidic Rebbe Rav Baruch of Kossov.[2] On his mother's side, he is a descendant of the Soloveitchik rabbinic dynasty. His maternal grandfather was Rabbi Moshe Soloveichik and his maternal great-grandfather was Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik, known as Reb Chaim Brisker.[2] His mother, Shulamit, authored the book The Soloveitchik Heritage: A Daughter's Memoir (1995).[3] Meiselman was a nephew of Rabbi Dr. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, rosh yeshiva of R.I.E.T.S., with whom, according to Meiselman, he had study sessions on a near daily basis from the time he was 18 until he was 29 years old.[4]

Meiselman graduated from high school at the Boston Latin School[5] and then went on to attend Harvard University (the undergraduate school which all three of Soloveitchik's children and his American grandchildren attended) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the latter institution, he studied under Dr. Donald Werner Anderson and earned his doctorate in mathematics in 1967 with the thesis "The Operation Ring for Connective K-Theory".[6]

Meiselman began his career teaching mathematics at City University of New York. After his marriage in 1971, he became a maggid shiur at Beis Medrash L'Torah in Skokie. Afterward, he taught at Yeshivas Brisk (Brisk Rabbinical College) in Chicago, headed for a time by his uncle, Rabbi Ahron Soloveichik.[2] In 1977 he moved to the West Coast and founded the Yeshiva University of Los Angeles (YULA), opening separate high school programs for boys and girls, a yeshivah gedolah, and a kolel. He also served as a posek (arbiter of Jewish law) for the local community.[2]

In 1982, having built up enrollment to nearly 400 male and female students in YULA's various divisions, Meiselman moved to Israel to open a yeshiva for American students, together with co-rosh yeshiva Rabbi Doniel Lehrfield (Rabbi Lehrfield and several other faculty members subsequently left to start another yeshiva, Bais Yisroel). He named the new school Toras Moshe after his grandfather, Moshe.[2][4] He selected Rabbis Michel Shurkin and Moshe Twersky, both close students of Rabbi Soloveitchik, to head the teaching staff.[2] In 2011, Meiselman reported about his yeshiva that "We have 96 boys in the beis medrash and 44 in the kollel, and almost all of our kollel yungerleit are home-grown".[7]

Meiselman is one of several grandchildren of Rabbi Moshe Soloveichik who have established yeshivas in Israel, perhaps the most famous being Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, son-in-law of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, who established Yeshivat Har Etzion in the late 1960s. Yeshivat Reshit,[8] a popular yeshiva in Israel for American students in Beit Shemesh, was established by the Rabbis Marcus, also descendants of Rabbi Moshe Soloveitchik.

Meiselman is the author of several books and numerous magazine articles. His Jewish Woman in Jewish Law (1978) sparked much discussion among authors and feminists for his traditional Jewish response to feminism. Additionally, Meiselman has authored Tiferes Tzvi, a commentary to the Rambam, as well as numerous articles on Talmudic study and thought in Hebrew.

Meiselman is married to Rivkah Leah Eichenstein.[2]

• "Book Review: 'Torah, Chazal and Science'", San Diego Jewish World, March 27, 2014