Biography
Elyashiv was the son of Rabbi Avraham Elyashiv (Erener) of Gomel, Belarus, and Chaya Musha, daughter of the kabbalist Rabbi Shlomo Elyashiv (d. 1925) of Šiauliai, Lithuania. Born in 1910 at Šiauliai, Elyashiv arrived with his parents in Mandatory Palestine in 1922 aged 12. He was an only child, born to his parents after 17 years of marriage. Originally his father's surname was Erener, but his father adopted his father-in-law's surname in order to gain a certificate to enter the British Mandate of Palestine.
At the suggestion of Chief Rabbi of Palestine, Abraham Isaac Kook, Elyashiv married Sheina Chaya (d. June 19, 1994), a daughter of Rabbi Aryeh Levin. The couple had five sons and seven daughters. Six of their daughters married significant rabbinic figures. One son died of illness as a child, and one daughter was killed in 1948 by Jordanian shelling.
In February 2012 the 101-year-old rabbi, was admitted into the cardiac intensive care unit of the Jesselson Heart Center at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center under the supervision of cardiology branch head Dan Tzivoni and his personal physician. He was admitted due to an acute condition of edema of the lungs and congestion in the heart. He died on July 18, 2012, and was buried on Har HaMenuchot after a late-night funeral procession that attracted an estimated 250,000 people.
At the time of his death, he had nearly 1,000 descendants. In 2009 he saw the beginning of a sixth generation, as a grandson was born to one of his great-grandchildren.
Read more about this topic: Yosef Shalom Eliashiv
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