Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

April 6, 2026

Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s Forgotten Friend

Chaim Heller’s scholarship and an unpublished letter.

Besides being the fourth day of Passover, yesterday was, on the Hebrew calendar, the 33rd anniversary of the death of the great 20th-century sage Joseph B. Soloveitchik. To mark the occasion, Aviad Hacohen and Menachem Butler delve into Rabbi Soloveitchik’s relationship with Rabbi Chaim Heller, whom he met during his time studying in Berlin in the 1920s. Examining their correspondence—including a heretofore unpublished letter from Soloveitchik to Heller—Hacohen and Butler expose a different side of Soloveitchik: a devoted disciple and loving friend, who showed great solicitousness for Heller’s health and financial wellbeing.

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