Moishe Sternbuch - Biography

Moishe Sternbuch (also written Moshe Shternbuch) is the Vice-President of the Rabbinical Court and Chief Rabbi Ra'avad of the Edah HaChareidis in Jerusalem. He resides in Har Nof where he is the rabbi of the local GR"A Synagogue, named after the Vilna Gaon of whom he is a direct descendant.

Born in London, England, before WWII he was orphaned by the death of his father at an early age. He attended the Toras Emes yeshiva in Stamford Hill, of which Rabbi Moshe Schneider was the rosh yeshiva., before learning in Brisk yeshiva. He also studied with Rabbi Bezalel Rakow, later to become the Gateshead Rov. He subsequently took up a position in Johannesburg, South Africa where he was widely acclaimed for his rabbinic leadership and popular lectures in Torah ethics to professionals across the Jewish spectrum. Being Chief Rabbi of the anti-Zionist Edah HaChareidis, he is of the view that there is no connection between the existence of a Jewish state and the beginning of the redemption of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel which will precede the Messianic Era, and strongly opposes the Zionist State of Israel and was against its establishment.

Works

• - Commentary on the Jewish holidays
• - Commentary on the Torah
• - Commentary on the Passover haggadah
• - Questions and answers on the Shulchan Aruch
• - Laws of the home
• - Laws and customs of the Vilna Gaon
• - Laws of writing a sefer torah, tefillin, and mezuzah.

Criticism

During his stay in Johannesburg, Rabbi Sternbuch created an alternate shechita that was not approved by the Johannesburg Beth Din. This has caused schisms between those who accept his schechita and those who reject it as not being approved by the Mora D'asra.