Generation after generation, members of the Soloveitchik family have constituted an integral and influential part of traditional Judaism's learning aristocracy, men who combined superb erudition, profound analysis, and leadership qualities which drew hundreds and thousands of the best and the brightest to them. Among the scions of this illustrious family was the man known familiarly to thousands as "the Rav", Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, who served for more than forty years as the preeminent authority of centrist Orthodoxy, and whose thoughts and teachings continue to exert great influence through his writings, and the work of many generations of disciples he taught at Yeshiva University. The memoir by his sister Shulamith Soloveitchik Meiselman, describes the life of the family of Rabbi Moses Soloveitchik before they emigrated to the United States in order to allow Rabbi Moses to assume the post of Rabbi Issac Elchanan Rabbinical School of Yeshiva College and until his life was cut tragically short and he was succeeded by his son, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. She also recounts the story of the family's antecedents, its connection with Rabbi Hayyim of Volozhin and the Volozhiner Yeshiva, as well as those of her mother's family, the Feinsteins, of whom Rabbi Moshe Feinstein was an eminent representative. This "daughter's eye view", which contains many personal glimpses of the family's life over a period of almost forty years, will be of great interest to anyone interested in the history of this preeminent family and the history of Eastern European and American Jewry in the nineteenth and twentieth century, as well as rabbinic life on both continents. The book contains sixteen pages of family photographs and memorabilia.
by Shulamith Soloveitchik Meiselman