Rabbi Yehuda Refson (1946 – 22 March 2020)obituary
/ref> served as the head of the regional Beth Din of

Leeds, England Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

, from 1976 until his death in 2020. He was also the local

Chabad Chabad, also known as Lubavitch, Habad and Chabad-Lubavitch (; ; ), is a dynasty in Hasidic Judaism. Belonging to the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) branch of Orthodox Judaism, it is one of the world's best-known Hasidic movements, as well as one of ...

emissary.

Career

Yehuda Refson was born in Sunderland in 1946. He studied at the

Gateshead Yeshiva Gateshead Talmudical College (), popularly known as Gateshead Yeshiva, is located in the Bensham area of Gateshead in North East England. It is the largest yeshiva in Europe and considered to be one of the most prestigious advanced yeshivas in ...

and in

Brunoy Brunoy () is a commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, Île-de-France, France. It is located from the center of Paris. The tenor Louis Nourrit (1780–1831) died in Brunoy. The city has a church Saint-Medard, richly decorated in the Lo ...

, France. Dayan Refson arrived in Leeds in 1976. In addition to his rabbinical (Shomrei Hadas Synagogue), beis din and Chabad emissary/outreach activities, Refson and his wife are co-directors of the Leeds Menorah School. Refson also has an oversight position regarding the local kosher meat supply.

Transportation lawsuit

Along with eight others, Refson brought a court case because the city council refused "free school transport ... for the purpose of facilitating the attendance ... at their present schools." When the court noted that there were closer Jewish schools, albeit not Orthodox, Refson was the key point man, as stated in the court's summary of the case. The court record includes his "I am the decisor of Halachic matters which affect the entire community... my responsibility is for the orthodox community of Leeds."

Education

His early religious education was at

and then at Yeshiva Tomchei Temimim Lubavitch of Brunoy, France, which was headed by Rabb

Nissan Neminov Nissen Nemanov (1904–1984), known familiarly as Reb Nissen, was a Belarusian Orthodox rabbi. He served as a Mashpia (Hasidic mentor) in the yeshiva of Tomchei Temimim in Brunoy, near Paris, France. He taught many thousands of students d ...

. Rabbi Refson received religious ordination * from the

central Lubavitch Yeshiva Tomchei Tmimim (, "supporters of the complete-wholesome ones") is the central Yeshiva (Talmudical academy) of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement. Founded in 1897 in the town of Lubavitch by Rabbi Sholom Dovber Schneersohn, it is now a ...

in Brooklyn both as a rabbi and as a rabbinical judge * from Rabbi

Moshe Feinstein Moshe Feinstein (; Lithuanian pronunciation: ''Moishe Fainshtein''; ; March 3, 1895 – March 23, 1986) was a Russian-born American Orthodox Jewish rabbi, scholar, and ''posek'' (authority on ''halakha''—Jewish law). He has been called ...

as a rabbi.

Teaching

In 2018 he released a four-part online course titled "Soul Talk: The Science of Being."

References

1946 births 2020 deaths 20th-century English rabbis 21st-century English rabbis Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis Clergy from Leeds {{UK-rabbi-stub