23 Facts About Meir Shapiro

Yehuda Meir Shapiro was a prominent Polish Hasidic rabbi and rosh yeshiva, known as the Lubliner Rav.

Meir Shapiro is noted for his promotion of the Daf Yomi study program in 1923, and establishing the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva in 1930.

Rabbi Yehuda Meir Shapiro was born on the 7th day of Adar in the city of Shatz, Bucovina, then in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, now in Romania, in 1887.

Meir Shapiro was a descendant of Rabbi Pinchas Shapiro of Korets, one of the students of the Baal Shem Tov, and from his maternal side, of Rabbi Joseph ben Isaac Bekhor Shor, a French tosafist.

Meir Shapiro was ordained by many great scholars, including the Maharsham.

Meir Shapiro's grandfather introduced him to the Chortkover Rebbe, and thus began his passion for Hasidism, and the beginning of his relationship with the Chortkover Rebbe.

Meir Shapiro spent ten years in the city, during which time he established a yeshiva called Bnei Torah.

Meir Shapiro introduced the revolutionary idea of Daf Yomi, a daily regimen undertaken to study the Babylonian Talmud one folio each day.

Rabbi Meir Shapiro introduced his idea at the First World Congress of the World Agudath Israel in Vienna on 16 August 1923.

Meir Shapiro conceived of a yeshiva for Hasidic Poland, modeled on Lithuanian yeshivas such as Volozhin, Slabodka and Novardok, but which would train Hasidic rabbis as the next generation to lead Polish Jewry.

Rabbi Meir Shapiro negotiated that a large part of his wage would go to pay off the debts that Chachmei Lublin was still struggling to pay off.

Whilst serving in Galina, Rabbi Meir Shapiro began his involvement with Agudat Israel.

Meir Shapiro was present at its founding conference in 1912.

Rabbi Meir Shapiro was initially very doubtful as to whether he should become an MP for the party, but was encouraged to do so by his rebbe, the Chortkover.

Meir Shapiro became ill with typhus in 1933 and died within the month, on 27 October 1933 at the age of 46.

Meir Shapiro's death was mourned in both Jewish and non-Jewish Poland.

Meir Shapiro's remains were reinterred in Israel in 1958, under the auspices of his brother.

Meir Shapiro was reburied in Har HaMenuchot with a full ceremony.

Rabbi Yitzchok Meir Shapiro Levin delivered a eulogy, as did those students of his who had survived the Holocaust.

Meir Shapiro is widely revered throughout the Jewish world as the founder of Daf Yomi.

Famous students of Rav Meir Shapiro who continued his legacy, include Rabbi Pinchas Hirschprung and Rabbi Shmuel Wosner.

Meir Shapiro was considered a gaon in his lifetime.

Meir Shapiro studied Torah extensively and was a great scholar even by the high standards of the era he lived in.