David Eliach z”l

David Eliach was born in Jerusalem on September 13, 1922, to a Chassidic family that had lived in Jerusalem for six generations. He was sent to a cheder until the age of eleven, when his father, in an unusual move, transferred him to a public school (beit seier amami) where he continued to study in a secular environment through high school. As a young man he was a member of the Haganah and also one of the seven founders of the Yeshivot Bnei Akiva. The Bnei Akiva schools incorporated an entirely new concept in Jewish religious education: a “yeshiva high school” where the synthesis of high-level Torah and secular studies could be achieved. After completing his college education, Rabbi Eliach studied at Teachers’ College in Jerusalem and was ordained at the Rabbinical College of the Hevron Yeshiva. In the 1940’s he began teaching at Meshek Yeladim Moza, an institution for child survivors of the Holocaust, and after two years he became its director. In 1949 he became principal of Kfar Batya, where he established a comprehensive high school for a village of 400 child survivors.

In 1953 Rabbi Eliach came to the United States to take a teaching position at the Yeshiva of Flatbush, and shortly thereafter was named Assistant Principal of Judaic Studies. In 1967 he became Principal of the Yeshiva of Flatbush High School and is currently Dean of its elementary and high schools. Rabbi Eliach is Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Azrieli Graduate Institute of Jewish Education and Administration at Yeshiva University. Recognized as a pioneer in the modern Orthodox yeshiva movement, he has received numerous awards and prizes for his leadership in Jewish education. In 1987 Yeshiva University conferred an honorary degree of Doctor of Pedagogy upon Rabbi Eliach, the first educator to receive that honor.