Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Rabbi Elyashiv Wakes Up, Is Responsive

Exactly two weeks after being hospitalized while unconscious and in critical condition, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, leader of the Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox community, opened his eyes for the first time, it was reported on Sunday.

Rabbi Elyashiv was hospitalized in the emergency care unit at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem due to heart, lungs and kidney complications. Since his hospitalization, Elyashiv has been anesthetized and put on life support.

Those close to the Rabbi, who will turn 102 in one month, reported that he is responding to his surroundings, but that his condition is still “serious.”

On Friday, Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem started a criticized procedure of stopping his anesthesia. The rabbi opened his eyes for the first time on Saturday, and for much of the day on Sunday he was sitting up.

For more, go to haaretz.com

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.