LEWIN, JUDAH LEIB

LEWIN, JUDAH LEIB (1894–1971), Russian rabbi. Born in Yekaterinoslav, where his father, Eliezer Shemuel, was rabbi, Lewin studied at the Slobodka yeshivah. During World War I he became rabbi of the Ukrainian town Grishino (now Krasnoarmeisk, Ukraine), and later, for a short period, rabbi of his native Yekaterinoslav. Because of the high taxes imposed on religious clergy and conflicts with the leaders of the congregation, he gave up the rabbinate and, returning to Krasnoarmeisk, engaged in the work of a religious scribe for various Jewish communities, particularly in Georgia. In 1957, when Rabbi solomon schliefer inaugurated the yeshivah in the Moscow Great Synagogue, Lewin was appointed principal. The head of the yeshivah was, according to official regulations, Rabbi Schliefer himself. Several months after Schliefer's death Lewin was appointed his successor, both as rabbi of the Great Synagogue and as head of the yeshivah. He did his best to fulfill his difficult task – to serve as semiofficial spokesman and apologist for the Soviet policy in matters of Judaism and at the same time to be a genuine spiritual leader to his congregation and refrain from acts and statements blatantly contradicting Jewish interests and the real sentiments of Soviet Jewry (as, e.g., condemning Israel's "aggression against the Arabs"). In spite of his age and poor health, he undertook a journey to the U.S. in 1968 at the invitation of the american council for judaism . In February 1969 the Committee of the Great Synagogue in Moscow invited rabbis from Israel and Western countries to attend the celebration of Lewin's 75th birthday. (Mordecai Chenzin)