Rabbi David Halivni won the Israel Prize for Talmud.
Halivni, who made aliyah in 2005, wrote a seven-volume commentary on the Talmud. He teaches at Bar-Ilan University and Hebrew University, and was a professor for many years at Columbia University in New York.
The founder of the Union for Traditional Judaism, a transdenominational religious organization that has attracted thousands of Orthodox and traditionally observant Jews, Halivni was born in Ukraine in 1927 and was ordained at the age of 15. He was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust.
The Israel Prize, the highest honor in Israel, will be awarded on Israel Independence Day, observed this year on May 8.
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