Moshe Sternbuch

In September 2018, Sternbuch blasted British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis for publishing an educational pamphlet warning against LGBT bullying in Orthodox schools. Sternbuch viewed this move as advocacy for the LGBT lifestyle.

In 1980, Sternbuch took up a position in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was very involved in outreach there, including his noted lectures to those in the medical field, leaving a deep impression on many people. When he later moved to Jerusalem, many of these South Africans joined him in his new location in the Har Nof neighbourhood.

After their marriage in 1954, the Sternbuchs moved to an apartment in Jerusalem next to Soloveitchik. The young Sternbuch was appointed rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Hamasmidim there. In 1960, after Soloveitchik's death, they moved to Bnei Brak, where they were to reside for the next 20 years. Yechezkel Abramsky urged Sternbuch to devote himself to strengthening Torah study in Rosh HaAyin, a nearby town with a substantial Yemenite Jewish immigrant population. Foregoing an opportunity to establish an elite kollel in Bnei Brak, he established one in Rosh HaAyin instead. He founded Beit Olot, a home for immigrant Mizrahi girls on the model of Bayit L'Pleitot [he], a similar home for Ashkenazi girls.

In 1954, Sternbuch married the daughter of Yaakov Schechter, an acquaintance of the Chazon Ish. Meshulam Dovid Soloveitchik was his brother-in-law.

After the war, Sternbuch decided to travel to the Land of Israel via France and Italy to study the Torah as taught in the Brisk yeshiva. He enrolled in the Hebron Yeshiva, simultaneously cultivating relationships with leading rabbis Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik (in 1952), Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz (the Chazon Ish) and Dov Berish Weidenfeld, all of whom he used to meet with regularly in their homes.

Moshe Sternbuch was born on 15 February 1926 (24 Shevat) in London, one of 9 children of Osher Sternbuch, an Orthodox Jewish merchant, and Devorah. His parents hosted numerous rabbis who came to London to raise money for their yeshivas, among them Elchonon Wasserman, who after learning with Sternbuch declared that he was a davar sheyeish bo mamash (a boy of substance). He was tested in learning every Shabbat by Yechezkel Abramsky, who predicted he would one day become a moreh hora'ah (posek). Before long he was known as the Londoner Illui (prodigy). Osher died in 1939 at the age of 39, leaving behind his eldest child of 18 years, the 10-year-old Sternbuch, and the youngest only two. In 1940, he entered the Toras Emes yeshiva in Stamford Hill, of which Moshe Schneider was the rosh yeshiva, where he would remain for ten years. He studied there with Bezalel Rakow, who was later to become the Gateshead Rov, Yitzchok Tuvia Weiss, his future colleague in the Edah HaChareidis, and future Olympia and York businessman Paul Reichmann.