LEWIN, AARON BEN NATHAN OF RZESZOW

LEWIN, AARON BEN NATHAN OF RZESZOW (1879–1941), rabbi, author, and communal worker. When he was 15 years old, his talmudic novellae were published and, when he was 19, his sermons in Davar be-Itto (1899). At the age of 24, he was elected rabbi of Sambor. He subsequently refused invitations from several other communities. Accorded the title of Kaiserlicher Rat (crown councillor), he was able to render many services to the refugees of World War i who streamed into Vienna. In 1922 he was elected to the Polish Sejm as representative of the "Jewish bloc" and was a member of its cultural commission. An outstanding speaker, he captivated his audience with his brilliant style. He was one of the leaders of *Agudat Israel, and delivered the opening addresses at its conventions in 1929 and 1937. In 1926 he was elected rabbi of Rzeszow, succeeding his father. In 1931 he was again elected to the Polish Sejm, but in 1935, because of government pressure, he failed to obtain reelection. Lewin participated in every sphere of communal activity in Poland. When the Germans invaded Poland in World War ii, he fled to Lemberg and then to Radzyn. He returned to Lemberg, where he was arrested by the Nazis and murdered. As well as his numerous communal activities, he was a prolific writer. In addition to Davar be-Itto, he published Birkat Aharon, on tractate Berakhot (1903); Ha-Derash ve-ha-Iyyun on Genesis (1927); on Exodus (1931); on Leviticus (1937); on Numbers (1939); responsa Avnei Ḥefeẓ (1934); and "Speeches in the Sejm" in Polish (1926). The second volume of Avnei Ḥefeẓ as well as Ha-Derash ve-ha-Iyyun on the end of Numbers and on Deuteronomy were lost in the Holocaust.

bibliography:

I. Lewin, in: Elleh Ezkerah, 1 (1956), 40–63; idem, in: L. Jung, Guardians of Our Heritage (1958), 583–601; Kehillat Reisha (1967), 86.

[Itzhak Alfassi]