Shimon Gershon Rosenberg

The publication in 2017 of a collection of his essays in English, Faith Shattered and Restored: Judaism in the Postmodern Age (Jerusalem: Maggid Books), translated by Elie Leshem, led to much online debate and controversy. Nonetheless it helped to widen his influence in the Modern Orthodox community in North America.

In 2012, Rabbi Mordechai Verdi produced a movie about Rabbi Shagar, entitled "To Chase After the Shadow."

In February 2007, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. This forced him to leave the yeshiva to undergo treatment. He and his wife moved to the moshav Givat Yeshayahu, actualizing a dream of many years. He handed over his writings to his friend and fellow yeshiva dean, Rabbi Yair Dreyfus, to prepare them for publication. On 21 May 2007, an institute was established to publish his writings. HaRav Shagar died a month later, on the 25th of Sivan 2007, and was buried in the Mount of Olives Jewish Cemetery.

In 2005, against the background of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, he signed, together with many rabbis from the Religious Zionist denomination, a public letter opposing the plan. He did, however, express clear opposition to soldiers' disobeying of orders.

In 1989 he served for one year as head of the Beth Midrash Ma'ale - the Center for Religious Zionism, together with Rabbi Yoel Bin-Nun and Professor Shalom Rosenberg. In 1990 Professor Benjamin Ish-Shalom established the Beit Midrash of Beit Morasha and appointed HaRav Shagar to lead it together with Rabbi Eliyahu Blomenzweig. At the end of 1996, he established Yeshivat Siach Yitzchak together with Rabbi Yair Dreyfus. He was the head of this yeshiva until his death. During this time he also functioned as the head of the Beit Midrash "Uri" for women and taught women at the Midrasha at Bar-Ilan University, Nishmat and Midreshet Lindenbaum. He lived in Kiryat Moshe in Jerusalem. He was married and had six children.

In the 1980s he was a dominant figure and teacher in Yeshivat HaKotel and even filled in for one year for the head of the yeshiva, Rabbi Yeshayahu Hadari (when Rabbi Hadari took a sabbatical). The uniting of a group of students around him led to internal politics, and he left his position as a lecturer at the yeshiva. In 1984 he established the higher yeshiva "Shefa." Heading the yeshiva together with him were Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz and Rabbi Menachem Froman. A group of his students from Yeshivat HaKotel came with him to the new yeshiva. In a later stage, the yeshiva helped establish the high school Makor Haim. Yeshivat Shefa closed with his leaving in 1988.

Rosenberg was badly injured during the Yom Kippur War in the tank battles in the Golan Heights. His tank took a direct hit and two of his comrades - fellow students in yeshiva - were killed instantly. He himself was badly burnt and was rescued with great difficulty. After recovering from his injuries, he returned to his yeshiva studies. He was awarded rabbinical ordination in 1976.

Rosenberg was born and raised in Jerusalem, to Shalom Zelig and his wife, both Transylvanian Holocaust survivors. He learned in the grade school Neve Etzion in the neighborhood of Bayit Vegan, and continued his studies in the Netiv Meir high school and in the Hesder yeshiva Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh. In 1973 he began to learn in Mercaz HaRav Kook, as well as with Rabbi Shlomo Fisher and kabbalists. In the same year he married Miriam Ziv. After his wedding, he began studying in the Kollel of Yeshivat HaKotel. He received his nickname "Shagar" in high school when one of his teachers saw the initials of his name on his Tallit bag and began to refer to him humorously as "Shagar."

Rabbi Shimon Gershon Rosenberg, ( שמעון גרשון רוזנברג ) (13 November 1949 – 11 June 2007), known by the acronym הרב שג"ר HaRav Shagar, was a Torah scholar and a religious postmodern thinker. His thought was characterized by Neo-Hasidism and postmodernism. In 1996 he established, together with Rabbi Yair Dreifuss, Yeshivat Siach Yitzchak, in Jerusalem. The yeshiva later moved to Givat HaDagan in Efrat and HaRav Shagar remained the head of the establishment until his death.