Yaakov Weinberg - Early Life and Family

Early Life and Family

Weinberg was a scion of the Slonimer Hasidic dynasty. He was the great-great-grandson of Rabbi Avraham of Slonim, author of Yesod HaAvodah and founder of the dynasty, and the grandson of Rabbi Noah Weinberg of Slonim and Tiberias, whom the first Slonimer Rebbe had sent to Palestine to establish a Torah community in the late 19th century.

His father, Rabbi Yitzchak Mattisyahu Weinberg, a son of Rabbi Noah Weinberg, was married three times. His first wife died while giving birth to his son, Chaim Yosef David. His second wife also bore him a son, Avraham, before they divorced. Rabbi Yitzchak Mattisyahu married his third wife, Hinda Loberbaum, the daughter of Rabbi Avner Loberbaum of Safed, when he was in his thirties. They had four children at widely-spaced intervals. The first two, Moshe and Chava, were born in 1910 and a year or so later. During World War I, Rabbi Yitzchak Mattisyahu was forced to leave Palestine and move to America; he brought his family to join him in New York in 1921. His and Hinda's third child, Yaakov, was born in 1923. Their youngest child, Noah, was born in 1931.

In 1931 Hinda took her two youngest sons to visit her family in Palestine and ended up staying for three years. During that time, Yaakov Weinberg attended cheder in Tiberias and later learned in the Etz Chaim Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Upon their return to America, Weinberg attended Yeshiva Torah Vodaas and Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim, and later studied at Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin under Rabbi Yitzchok Hutner. Weinberg was regarded as a top student and was assigned to weekend rabbinical duties at the age of 19. Rabbi Hutner gave him semicha in 1944 when he was 21.