Reuven Katz

Rabbi Reuven Katz (; 1880–1963) was a rabbi in Russia, the United States, and Israel. Serving at first in several Russian communities and then in Bayonne, New Jersey, for the last thirty years of his life he served as chief rabbi of Petah Tikvah and as the rosh yeshiva of the city's Lomza Yeshiva.

Early life

Rabbi Katz was born in Halshany (known in Yiddish as Olshan or Olshany), Russia, in 1880. As a child, he studied in the yeshiva of Rabbi Dovid Shlomo Grodzinski (father of Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski) in Iwye. A prodigious student, he was known as the "ilui (prodigy) of Olshany" and had memorized the talmudic tractates Shabbat and Bava Kamma — a feat unattained by many scholars four times his age — by the age of eleven. He soon transferred to the Mir Yeshiva where he remained for a short time before going to learn at the Radin Yeshiva of the Chafetz Chaim. He was fifteen years old at the time.

Reuven later left the Radin Yeshiva and enrolled in Yeshivas Knesses Yisrael Slabodka, the yeshiva of Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel (the "Alter of Slabodka'") and Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein. In 1897, when the Alter sent fourteen of the yeshiva's elite students to be the founding student body of the Slutsk Yeshiva, Reuven was among those chosen, alongside Pesach Pruskin and Eliezer Yehudah Finkel. He would remain there for several years. and a sefer titled Shaar Reuven, a collection of essays on contemporary issues, including German reparations, drafting girls and yeshiva students into the army, and celebrating Israeli independence day.

Death

Rabbi Katz died in November 1963, with his funeral attended by some of Israel's leading rabbis and rebbes. His son, Rabbi Aharon Katz, served as rosh yeshiva of Lomza.