RABBI YEHUDA AMITAL (1924–2010) was raised in pre-Holocaust Hungary, where he spent his youth immersed in yeshiva study. At the age of nineteen, he was deported to a Nazi labor camp and emerged as the sole survivor of his family. Upon his liberation, he made his way to the Land of Israel. Fulfilling a promise that if he survived he would study Torah in Jerusalem, he attended Yeshivat Hevron for the next several years until he joined the Israel Defense Forces. After fighting in Israel’s War of Independence, Rabbi Amital embarked on a remarkable career in Jewish education. In 1968, he founded Yeshivat Har Etzion and, alongside Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, built it into a world-renowned center of higher Torah learning and service to the Jewish people. From 1995–96, he served as a minister in the Israeli government in charge of religious-secular and Israel-Diaspora relations. After heading the largest hesder yeshiva for four decades and appointing his successors, Rabbi Amital retired in 2008. An exceptional public figure and religious teacher, Rabbi Amital lived a life of deep faith, humility, ethical responsibility, and commitment to individual and national vibrancy.
