Yehezkel Abramsky

Yehezkel Abramsky (Hebrew: יחזקאל אברמסקי‎) (1886 – September 19, 1976), also affectionately referred to as 'Reb Chatzkel Abramsky', was a prominent and influential Orthodox rabbi and scholar, born and raised in Belarus who later headed the London Beth Din for 17 years.

Rabbinate and scholarship

Yehezkel Abramsky was born in Dashkovichy, Grodno Governorate, Russian Empire (in present-day Belarus) was the third child and eldest son of Mordechai Zalman Abramsky, a local timber merchant, and his wife, Freydel Goldin of Grodno. His parents were deeply religious but the village lacked enough Jews to support a prayer service so Yehezkel studied at home until the yeshivas of Telz, Mir, Slabodka and particularly Brisk under Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik. At the age of 17 he became a rabbi, serving, in turn, the communities of Smolyan, Smolevich and Slutsk. In 1909 he married Reizel, daughter of Rabbi Moshe Nahum Jerusalimsky, the rabbi of Iehumen, Russia.

Following the Russian Revolution, he was at the forefront of opposition to the Communist government's attempts to repress the Jewish religion and culture. As a result, the Russian government refused Abramsky permission to leave and take up the rabbinate of Petah Tikva in Palestine in both 1926 and 1928. In 1926, while serving as the rabbi of Slutsk, he joined (together with Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin) the Vaad Harabbonim of the U.S.S.R.