Avraham Duber Kahana Shapiro

Avraham Dov-Ber Kahana Shapiro (1870 – February 27, 1943) was the last Chief Rabbi of Kovno (Kaunas, Lithuania) and the author of Devar Avraham, a three-volume collection of responsa (answers to questions of religious practice).

Biography He was born in 1870 to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Sender, a Kohen (hereditary Jewish priest) and author of Sefer Chidushei HaGarzas on Kodshim, on October 5 on the night immediately following Yom Kippur, in the city of Kobryn. He was a descendant of Rabbi Chaim Volozhin.

He studied in the Volozhin Yeshiva. The first volume of his magnum opus, the Devar Avraham, was published in 1906 when he was thirty-five years old.

He was the last Chief Rabbi of Lithuania.

Death Shapiro was in Switzerland for health reasons before the war broke out. His son, who was living in the United States, sent him a telegram to join him in the U.S. until the war was over He died of an illness in the Kovno Ghetto on February 27, 1943. He is buried in the same cemetery as Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor.