R. Aryeh Levin

Rabbi Aryeh Levin (1885–1969) was known throughout the Yishuv as the 'Tzaddik of Jerusalem' for his pastoral devotion to the city's prisoners, lepers, and impoverished. Born in Orla (Russian Poland) and educated at Slutsk and Volozhin, he made aliyah in 1905 and was the close talmid of R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook.

From the early 1920s he served as 'rabbi of the prisons' under British Mandate authorities, visiting the imprisoned Etzel and Lehi underground fighters every Shabbat. After 1948 he continued this work for ordinary prisoners. His weekly visits to the leper colony in Talbieh, his anonymous distribution of tzedakah, and his refusal of any honors or titles became legendary. The biography *A Tzaddik in Our Time* (Simcha Raz, 1971) brought his life to a wide English-speaking audience.