Ezra Binyomin Schochet is one of six sons and four daughters[2] of Rabbi Dov Yehuda Schochet (d. 1974)[3] and Sara Sosha Mussensohn. His father was the Chief Rabbi of Basel, Switzerland[4] from 1930 until 1947.[5] Shortly after immigrating to Toronto in the early 1950s, the Schochets and most of their children joined the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, including young Ezra. His brothers included Rabbi Dr. Jacob Immanuel Schochet (1935–2013).[2]
Rabbi Schochet assumed the position of rosh yeshiva of Tomchei Temimim in Lod, Israel, from 1972 to 1973. He returned to Canada and headed the kollel of Ner Israel in Toronto from 1974 to 1978.[6]
In 1977, he became rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Ohr Elchonon in Los Angeles, which had been given over to the directorship of Chabad.[7][8] Chabad transferred a group of Lubavitcher students from New York to bolster the yeshiva.[8] Schochet is also the yeshiva's CEO, curriculum supervisor, and senior professor of Talmud.[6]
Personal
Schochet married Sara Rochel Weinberg (1944–2010),[9] a granddaughter of the SlonimerRebbe,[10] in 1967.[11] Weinberg died in 2010.[12] In 2011 Schochet married Batsheva Wolf from Israel.[13]
Rabbi Schochet has three sons and three daughters. His son Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Shochet, a Talmudic scholar, teaches in his father's Yeshiva. Two of Schochet's son-in-laws, as well as some of his grandchildren, are part of the Yeshiva faculty.[14]
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