Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak Galinsky was a Torah teacher and maggid whose life connected the prewar Novardok yeshiva world with the rebuilding of Jewish education in Israel. Born in Krynki, Poland, he studied at the Novardok yeshiva in Bialystok. The mussar school in which he was educated shaped his later teaching.
From hardship to education
During the war he endured Soviet exile, Siberian camps and difficult displacement. He subsequently lived in displaced-persons camps in Germany. In 1949 he came to Israel and settled in Bnei Brak. His educational work included establishing yeshivas and kollels; he headed the Novardok yeshiva in Hadera.
Galinsky died in January 2014. Recollections emphasize lively delivery, humor and an ability to communicate serious ethical work through understandable stories. His experiences became part of his educational testimony without replacing the study of traditional sources.
Stories and books
Vehigadeta preserves explanations, parables and stories from his Torah and festival teaching. Rabbi Shalom Meir Wallach prepared the series’ Passover Haggadah. The teacher’s name and the compiler’s name therefore identify different contributions to the book.
Feldheim’s Rav Yaakov Galinsky was written by his daughter, Rebbetzin G. Lehrer. The National Library also holds the family biography Vayivater Yaakov. These accounts reveal the person behind the familiar parables: a Novardok student and a teacher of successive generations.
The author’s articles in our magazine
- On One Foot – A Grandfather's Influence
- Lessons from the Mitzvah of Maror
- A Drop of Goodness – How Can Judgment Be Turned into Mercy?
- Rabbi Preida's Student—There Is No Room for Despair!