TELUSHKIN, NISSAN

TELUSHKIN, NISSAN (1882–1970), rabbi. Born in Bobrosk, Minsk Province, Lithuania, Telushkin attended yeshivot in Kursov and Slutsk, Lithuania, under some of the leading scholars of the time, including Rabbi Baruch Baer Leibowitz and Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer. In 1902 he received ordination from several rabbis, including Rabbi Samuel Moses Shapiro, Rabbi Joseph Bakst, and the Lubavitcher rebbe, Rabbi Shalom Dov Schneersohn. After that, Telushkin served as a congregational rabbi in Europe until 1924, when he immigrated to the United States. There, he assumed the leadership of Congregation B'nai Yitzchak in Brooklyn, where he remained until retirement in 1967. Telushkin was unusual in his dual support of religious Zionism and Ḥasidism. He was involved with Mizrachi, the religious Zionist organization of America, and the Lubavitch community and functioned on behalf of the Vaad ha-Rabbonim of New York. He became editor of the Vaad's Torah journal, Hamsiloh. Part of his life's work was to improve the conditions of mikva'ot in New York. In that realm, Telushkin wrote a book, Taharat Mayim, about the laws of mikveh. It received wide praise from his colleagues. Telushkin also wrote a three-volume commentary on the Bible titled Ha-Torah ve-ha-Olam. (Lynne Schreiber (2nd ed.)