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R. Joshua Heshel b. Elijah Zev ha-Levi Lewin (1818–1883), Lithuanian talmudist and author. R. Lewin was born in Vilna and studied under R. Elijah Ragoler. In addition to his extensive talmudic learning, he acquired a knowledge of secular subjects. He married a granddaughter of R. Isaac b. Hayyim of Volozhin, in which town he took up residence. His opposition to the teaching methods at the yeshivah of Volozhin brought him into conflict with its heads, R. Eliezer Isaac and R. Eliezer's brother-in-law, R. Naphtali Zevi Judah Berlin. R. Lewin had hoped to become head of the yeshivah and to make fundamental changes in its curriculum and direction. When his differences with R. Berlin were brought before the trustees of the yeshiva, however, they decided against R. Lewin, who thereupon felt compelled to leave Volozhin. Subsequently he lived an unsettled life. For a year he acted as rabbi of Praga (a suburb of Warsaw). After lecturing in various provincial towns on his new approach to the functions of the rabbi, he went to St. Petersburg and called a rabbinical conference where, with the participation of the Society for the Promotion of Culture Among the Jews, the founding of Jewish elementary schools was discussed. From 1875 to 1876 he was the preacher at a synagogue in Minsk. R. Lewin was a supporter of the Hovevei Zion movement, favored the establishment of an Orthodox rabbinical seminary, and initiated with the encouragement and participation of some of the most eminent rabbis of his day the publication of a rabbinic journal, Peletat Soferim, of which, however, only one number appeared (1863). In 1882 he succeeded R. Israel Lipkin of Salant as rabbi of the Russian community in Paris, but died in the following year.
R. Lewin was the author of: glosses to the Midrash Rabbah, published with the commentary of R. Zev Wolf Einhorn to Genesis Rabbah (1835); Mevasseret Ziyyon (1866), prospectus to his book Ziyyon Yehoshu'a; Aliyyat Eliyahu (1856), a biography of R. Elijah b. Solomon, the gaon of Vilna; Ziyyun Yehoshu'a (1869), parallel passages in the Jerusalem Talmud which shed light on the Babylonian; Mareh Yehoshu'a (1869), glosses to the Jerusalem Talmud; Tosefot Sheni le Ziyyon (1886), passages from the Babylonian Talmud paralleling and clarifying passages in the Jerusalem Talmud; Davar be-Itto (1878), a rabbinical anthology; Mizpeh Yehoshu'a, an extract from his commentary on Avot, entitled Ma'yenei Yehoshu'a was printed in the Ru'ah Hayyim (1859) of R. Hayyim b. Isaac of Volozhin. His other works remain unpublished. R. Lewin also published the prayer book Derekh ha-Hayyim (1845) of R. Jacob Lorbeerbaum of Lissa. His planned new edition of the Jerusalem Talmud to include the commentary of R. Moses b. Simeon Margolioth (Penei Moshe) and his own Mareh Yehoshu'a was not realized (see Ha-Maggid, 3 (1859) no. 18).
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