4 Top Rabbis Scoop Katz Award

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks Image by Getty Images

By JTA May 12, 2014

Four leading rabbis will be honored for their work in applying halachah, or Jewish law, to modern life.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks Image by Getty Images

The Katz Award 2014 recipients were announced Sunday.

They are Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of Britain; Rabbi Zvi (Herschel) Schachter, rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva University; Rabbi Zalman Nehemiah Goldberg, the rosh yeshiva of the Hasidic Yeshiva of Sadigura and the Jerusalem College of Technology, as well as the co-author of the Rabbinical Council of America’s prenuptial agreement; and the late Rabbi Yehoshua Yeshaya Neuwirth, a rabbinic scholar who authored Shemirat Shabbat Kehilchatah, the authoritative work on the laws of Shabbat and Yom Tov.

A committee chaired by Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, a former chief rabbi of Israel, and made up of Talmudic scholar Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz and Hebrew University President Menahem Ben-Sasson, selected the winners.

The awards will be presented at a ceremony in Jerusalem on May 27.

The Katz Award was established in 1975 by Marcos and Adina Katz of Mexico and is awarded to individuals and enterprises engaged in the application of halachah — Jewish law in modern life — in the creation of written work and practical applications.

Previous recipients include the late Rabbi Yosef Dov HaLevi Soloveitchik, the late Rabbi Shlomo Goren, Menachem Elon, Nahum Rakover and Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Bar Ilan.

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