B'OR HA'TORAH Volume 7 (1991)

Born and raised in the USA, Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh received an MA in mathematics from the Belfer Graduate School of Science in New York City in 1965.

After making aliya to Israel and studying for several years in yeshivot in Jerusalem, he married and moved to Kfar Habad, where he lives with his family.

Rabbi Ginsburgh is Rosh Yeshiva of Od Yosef Hai, near Joseph's tomb in Shkhem. He also teaches Hasidism in Israel and the diaspora and is the Rosh Kollel of Kollel Menuha Rahel in Hebron.

Rabbi Ginsburgh's teachings on Hasidism are published in English and Hebrew by Gal Einai in Jerusalem. His system is based on the interrelation and flow among the five fundamental Torah-oriented topics of art and music, mathematics/natural sciences, psychology of mind ("light shining to oneself" — the service of meditation), psychology of heart ("light shining to others" — the rectification of character), and sociology/government.

At age nine, Avraham Kushelevsky emigrated with his family from the United States to Israel, where his father, Rabbi Eliyahu Kushelevsky, became the head of the rabbinical court of Beersheba. After studying at the Slobodka Yeshiva in Bnei Brak and the Hebron Yeshiva in Jerusalem, Kushelevsky went to England to study physics and received his doctorate from Salford University. Returning to Israel, he taught and conducted research in Medical Physics at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba. He chaired the Technological Incubator in Ofakim and represented the Ministry of Environment in the Interministerial Committee on Ionizing Radiation.

Three articles by Professor Kushelevsky—“The Religious Foundations of Science,” “The War between Religion and Science in the Nineteenth Century and the Change in the Twentieth Century,” and “Halacha and the Preservation of the Text of the Holy Scriptures”—were translated into English from the Hebrew in B’Or Ha’Torah issues 1 and 2 and published in B’Or Ha’Torah 7E. They were reprinted in the anthology edited by Herman Branover and Ilana Attia, Science in the Light of the Torah, published by Jason Aronson in 1994.

Professor Kushelevsky was an active member of the B’Or Ha’Torah International Advisory Board. His guidelines were always clear; his criticism constructive; his attitude modest, cheerful, and optimistic. His untimely death over a year ago deprived us of a great friend and a true man of Torah and science.

At age nine, Avraham Kushelevsky emigrated with his family from the United States to Israel, where his father, Rabbi Eliyahu Kushelevsky, became the head of the rabbinical court of Beersheba. After studying at the Slobodka Yeshiva in Bnei Brak and the Hebron Yeshiva in Jerusalem, Kushelevsky went to England to study physics and received his doctorate from Salford University. Returning to Israel, he taught and conducted research in Medical Physics at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba. He chaired the Technological Incubator in Ofakim and represented the Ministry of Environment in the Interministerial Committee on Ionizing Radiation.

Three articles by Professor Kushelevsky—“The Religious Foundations of Science,” “The War between Religion and Science in the Nineteenth Century and the Change in the Twentieth Century,” and “Halacha and the Preservation of the Text of the Holy Scriptures”—were translated into English from the Hebrew in B’Or Ha’Torah issues 1 and 2 and published in B’Or Ha’Torah 7E. They were reprinted in the anthology edited by Herman Branover and Ilana Attia, Science in the Light of the Torah, published by Jason Aronson in 1994.

Professor Kushelevsky was an active member of the B’Or Ha’Torah International Advisory Board. His guidelines were always clear; his criticism constructive; his attitude modest, cheerful, and optimistic. His untimely death over a year ago deprived us of a great friend and a true man of Torah and science.

At age nine, Avraham Kushelevsky emigrated with his family from the United States to Israel, where his father, Rabbi Eliyahu Kushelevsky, became the head of the rabbinical court of Beersheba. After studying at the Slobodka Yeshiva in Bnei Brak and the Hebron Yeshiva in Jerusalem, Kushelevsky went to England to study physics and received his doctorate from Salford University. Returning to Israel, he taught and conducted research in Medical Physics at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba. He chaired the Technological Incubator in Ofakim and represented the Ministry of Environment in the Interministerial Committee on Ionizing Radiation.

Three articles by Professor Kushelevsky—“The Religious Foundations of Science,” “The War between Religion and Science in the Nineteenth Century and the Change in the Twentieth Century,” and “Halacha and the Preservation of the Text of the Holy Scriptures”—were translated into English from the Hebrew in B’Or Ha’Torah issues 1 and 2 and published in B’Or Ha’Torah 7E. They were reprinted in the anthology edited by Herman Branover and Ilana Attia, Science in the Light of the Torah, published by Jason Aronson in 1994.

Professor Kushelevsky was an active member of the B’Or Ha’Torah International Advisory Board. His guidelines were always clear; his criticism constructive; his attitude modest, cheerful, and optimistic. His untimely death over a year ago deprived us of a great friend and a true man of Torah and science.

Susan Schneider is the writer and director of A Still Small Voice, a correspondence school that provides weekly teachings in classic Jewish wisdom to subscribers around the world. She also teaches individuals or small groups wanting to work with text in depth.

Holding a BA in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology from the University of Colorado, Susan Schneider has also studied in the advanced program of Neve Yerushalayim. Working as a biologist, she pioneered an on-site respiratory program at Celestial Seasonings herb tea company in Colorado.

“Evolution—Form and Consciousness” by her appeared in B’Or Ha’Torah 4; and “The Underside of Creative Expression,” in B’Or Ha’Torah 7E.

Her fax is 972-2-628-8302

Herman Branover was born in Riga, Latvia, earned his PhD from the Moscow Institute of Aviation in magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), and completed a DSc degree in physics and mathematics at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute. While a leading scientist at the Latvian Academy of Science, Professor Branover discovered G-d and the Torah, became a Lubavitcher Hasid, and then struggled for the right for Jews to immigrate to Israel. During this difficult period and up until the present, he has led the cultural and spiritual revival of Russian Jewry.

After settling in Beersheba with his wife and son, in 1977 Professor Branover created the Center for Magnetohydrodynamics Studies at Ben-Gurion University. The Center engages in teaching, research, and the development of a novel MHD electricity generator. He has authored over twenty scientific books and textbooks, thirty technological patents, hundreds of professional articles, and an autobiography, Return (published by Jason Aronson).

As honorary president of SHAMIR, the Israel Association of Religious Professionals from the Former USSR, Professor Branover continues encouraging Russian Jews to observe the Torah and live in Israel. He is the initiator and editor-in-chief of B’Or Ha’Torah, published by SHAMIR. A recipient of the S.D. Bergman Prize for the development of new technology in Israel, he also received the Knesset Speaker’s Award in 1991 for his work with Russian immigrant absorption. He chairs the prime minister’s committee for solving immigrants’ professional employment problems. He is a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences in Moscow and the Latvian Academy of Sciences, a member of the Moscow International Energy Club, and has received honorary doctorates from the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Technical University of St. Petersburg, and Yeshiva University. In 2001 he won the Award of Honor of the Menachem Begin Prize for his outstanding contribution to the State of Israel and the Jewish People.

Papers by Professor Branover have been published in B’Or Ha’Torah volumes 7E, 9E, 10E, 11E, and 12E.