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R. Chaim Tchernowitz (Rav Za’ir, 1871–1949) was born in Sebesh, Russia, studied in Lithuania and obtained semikhah from R. Isaac Elchanan Spektor of Kovno in 1896. Moving to Odessa the following year, he founded his own yeshivah, eventually transforming it into a rabbinical seminary (1907) which attracted many students from the Jewish intelligentsia in Russia, including Hayyim Nahman Bialik and Joseph Klausner. Tchernowitz’s ambition was to combine traditional study with modern research in order to rejuvenate Jewish learning. R. Tchernowitz received a Ph.D from the University of Wuerzburg in 1914. Settling in the United States in 1923, he taught Talmud at the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York.
R. Tchernowitz wrote scholarly and popular works. He published studies on the codes of literature preceding R. Joseph Caro, Le-Toledot ha-Shulhan Arukh ve-Hitpashetuto. In a more popular vein he wrote a series of general articles on the Talmud. R. Tchernowitz’s primary interest was to produce a full historical account of the development of the halakhah. His concern was to present the halakhah not in its final crystallization but in its development beginning in pre-Mosaic times. His Toledot ha-Halakhah (4 vols., 1935–50) covers the period up to the destruction of the Second Temple, and Toledot ha-Posekim (3 vols., 1946–47) deals with the post-talmudic, geonic, and medieval periods. These works are widely used by students of the history of Jewish law.
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