Rabbi Nahum Sheinin, senior rabbinical judge, dies at 89

Rabbi Nahum Sheinin, a judge on Israel’s Great Rabbinical Court and formerly the head of the Tel Aviv Regional Rabbinical Court, died today at the age of 89. He was known on the bench as a thorough and uncompromising דיין, or rabbinical judge.

Sheinin was the son of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Sheinin, who served as a spiritual supervisor at the Rehovot yeshiva and was a close student of Rabbi Natan Tzvi Finkel, the “Saba of Slabodka.” As a young man, he studied at Or Israel Yeshiva in Petah Tikva and later at Ponevezh Yeshiva, where he became close to Rabbi Elazar Menachem Shach, a relationship that stayed with him throughout his life.

After marrying his wife, Rabbi Tova Sheinin, who died in 2020, he lived in Bnei Brak. He led the Tel Aviv Regional Rabbinical Court until 2007 and then served on the Great Rabbinical Court from 2008. In parallel, he headed the “Tov HaTorah” kollel and served as rabbi of the Hekhal Moshe Yitzchak synagogue in Bnei Brak.

He is survived by children and grandchildren, including his son Rabbi Avraham Sheinin. His younger brother is Rabbi Yosef Sheinin, the chief rabbi of Ashdod. The funeral left his study hall on Bnei Brak’s Baal Shem Tov Street 16 at 3:30 p.m. and proceeded to the Ponevezh Yeshiva cemetery, where he was buried.