DWORKIN, ZALMAN SHIMON

DWORKIN, ZALMAN SHIMON (1911–1985), Lubavitch rabbi. Dworkin was born in Rogotchov, White Russia. At the age of 11, he arrived in the city of Lubavitch, then the center of activities of the *Chabad-Lubavitch movement, to study in the Yeshivah Tomchei Tmimim Lubavitch. In late 1915, when the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Shalom Dov Baer, relocated from Lubavitch and settled in Rostov, Dworkin also settled there. As the need for additional Chabad grade schools and yeshivot across Eastern Europe became apparent to the Rebbe in Rostov, Dworkin was one of the students that served as the seed group in establishing many of them, as the Rebbe's emissary. He received rabbinic ordination from the Rogotchover Gaon, Rabbi Joseph *Rozin.

Following his marriage, Dworkin became the rabbi of the city of Stardov, Russia. He also served as a rosh yeshivah in Yeshivah Tomchei Tmimim Lubavitch in Samarkand and in later years in Paris, France. During World War ii, he oversaw the kashrut of meat in Ireland. After the war, he arrived in the United States and settled in the Lubavitch community in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, n.y. In the mid-1960s, he was appointed to the position of "rav" and "av bet din" in the Lubavitcher community.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel *Schneersohn, was very fond of Dworkin and would refer many people with complicated halakhic questions to him, but also those with personal dilemmas that needed a bright and caring individual to assist them. The rabbi was exemplary in treating every individual, no matter who he was, with great sensitivity and understanding. He was a renowned expert on sheḥitah (ritual slaughter) and many other issues. After his death his responsa were published in book form as Koveẓ Razash.

[Michoel A. Seligson (2^nd ed.)]