Yitsḥak Ya‘akov Reines

Born in Karlin, near Pinsk in the Russian Empire (today in Belarus), Yitsḥak Ya‘akov (Isaac Jacob) Reines studied at the important Volozhin yeshiva and went on to serve as rabbi for several communities in the region. In the 1880s he founded the Torah ve-Da‘at yeshiva, which sought to combine traditional Talmud study with some secular studies; this innovative institution survived a few years before the blunt opposition of traditionalist rabbis forced it to close. Settling in Lida (also in contemporary Belarus), Reines established a similar yeshiva in the town in 1905 that incorporated curricular material from the Russian gymnasium system. Reines’s approach greatly influenced later modern Orthodox educational institutions, although at the time it drew criticism from both traditionalists and maskilim, albeit for opposing reasons. Embracing Zionism but remaining Orthodox, Reines rejected the claims of most Orthodox leaders that Zionism would inherently lead to heresy and secularization. Seeing Zionism in pragmatic, nonmessianic terms as an essential solution to the worldly problems facing East European Jewish life, he helped establish the first religious faction within Zionist movement, the Mizrachi party.