Yehuda (Leo) Levi


Yehuda Levi was a German-born American-Israeli Haredi rabbi, physicist, writer and educator. He was Rector and Professor of Electro-optics at the Jerusalem College of Technology. Levi was best known as the author of several books on Science and Judaism, and Judaism in contemporary society, as well as on physics.

Biography

Levi was born in Germany and was educated in the United States. He received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in electrical engineering from City College, N.Y. and his Ph.D in Physics from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 1964. He studied Talmud at Gur Aryeh Institute's kollel, and received semicha from Rabbi Yitzchok Hutner and additionally from Rabbi Joseph Breuer.
In 1970 he settled in Jerusalem with his wife and three sons, where he founded the electro-optics department of the Jerusalem College of Technology. He served as Rector of the college from 1982 to 1990.
Levi was a Fellow of the Gur Aryeh Institute for Advanced Jewish Scholarship, has been president of the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists , both in the U.S.A. and in Israel, and was the recipient of the Feder and Abramowitz-Zeitlin awards.
He was latterly part of the faculty at the Yeshivat Dvar Yerushalayim. Levi died in June 2019 at the age of 93.

Works

In addition to over 100 articles published in various scientific, technical, and Judaica journals, Prof. Levi has published several books. He is known for combining analysis of practical issues in Jewish law with philosophic discussion.