Rav Eliezer Yehuda Waldenberg zt"l
הרב אליעזר יהודה בן יעקב גדליה ולדנברג זצ"ל
Cheshvan 30 , 5767
Known As: Tzitz Eliezer
Father's Name: Yaakov Gedalya Waldenberg
Relatives: Rav Simcha Bunim Waldenberg
Rav Eliezer Yehuda Waldenberg zt"l
Rav Eliezer Yehuda Waldenberg was born in Yerushalayim to Rav Yaakov Gedalya who came to Eretz Yisrael from Kovno in the early 1900s. He learned in the Eitz Chaim Yeshiva and developed a very warm bond with Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer. Rav Waldenberg wrote his first sefer, Dvar Eliezer, when he was only nineteen. Upon the passing of his mother and later his father, both in the 1960s, he published two separate seforim on the halochos of mourning. Rav Waldenberg got involved with medical ethics during the period that he served as Rav of a shul adjacent to the old location of Sha’arei Tzedek Hospital in downtown Yerushalayim. Among those who attended was Professor Avrohom Steinberg, a pediatric neurologist and head of the Medical Ethics Center at Sha’arei Tzedek, as well as the editor of the Talmudic Encyclopedia. “Doctors who davened at the shul, myself included, started asking him questions. Eventually, he began teaching a weekly medical ethics class for doctors and nurses.” His teshuvos were compiled in his magnum opus, a twenty-one-volume set of responsa entitled Tzitz Eliezer. The first volume of Tzitz Eliezer was published in 1945, when he was not yet thirty. In addition, he authored a book on the laws of sea travel on Shabbos called Shvisa B’yam, a book on the laws of mourning called Ein Ya’akov and a book on legal issues in the modern State called Hilchos Medina. He was also a member of the Bais Din HaGodol where he sat together for many years with Rav Yosef Sholom Elyashiv. Rav and Rebbetzin Waldenberg merited to have one child, a son, Rav Simcha Bunim Waldenberg. Rav Simcha Bunim became a Dayan in the Eida HaChareidis and served as its appointed Rav of the neighborhood of Ezras Torah. He himself was known as a posek muvhok.