September 30, 2021

The International Rabbinic Fellowship joins with the rest of the Jewish world in mourning the passing of Rabbi Dr. Moshe David Tendler.

Rabbi Tendler was a leading rabbinic scholar, rosh yeshiva, posek, communal rabbi, scientist and medical expert. R. Tendler was one of the world's leading experts of Jewish medical ethics and the interface of medicine and halakha, including advocating for acceptance of brain death criteria as a halakhic definition of death enabling greater opportunities for organ transplantation within the parameters of Jewish law.

He served as a premier Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshiva University for more than half a century educating and guiding thousands of students. In addition during those decades he taught biology and other science courses at Yeshiva College. A beloved communal rabbi for more than 60 years in a number of locales, he impacted both his community and the Jewish world through his teaching, lectures, voluminous writings and the force of his charismatic and deeply caring personality.

He was an early student of the Rav, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zt"l, and a close disciple and intimate of his illustrious father in law, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein zt"l, the preeminent posek of  American Jewry during the middle of the 20th century.

May his family be comforted by the Almighty among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.