Vilna Gaon

The Vilna Gaon ("Genius of Vilnius") or Gra (from the Hebrew acronym for Gaon Rabbi Eliyahu) are titles commonly used to refer to Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman (Eliasz Zelmanowicz) (April 23, 1720 - October 9, 1797), a leading talmudic scholar of the eighteenth century who is credited with founding the yeshiva movement that gave rise to what is now known as Lithuanian Judaism.

Biography

The Vilna Gaon was born in April 1720 in Seltz, a shtetl located between Grodno and Brest, which were then part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. His parents were Shlomo Zalman of Vilnius and Treina, daughter of Rabbi Meir of Seltz.

He married his first wife, Chana, daughter of Yehuda Leib of Keidan, in about 1740. They had eight children prior to her death in 1782. He subsequently married Gittel Luntz, a widow from Kelmė, Lithuania.

He died in Vilnius on October 9, 1797.