Yitzchak Hutner

Yitzchak Hutner (Hebrew: יצחק הוטנר; 1906 – November 28, 1980), also known as Isaac Hutner, was an American Orthodox rabbi and rosh yeshiva (dean).

Originally from Warsaw, Hutner first studied the Torah in Slabodka. He then traveled to Mandatory Palestine where he became a student in the Hebron Yeshiva, and narrowly escaped the 1929 Hebron massacre. After this, Hutner returned to Europe, where he befriended Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Menachem Mendel Schneerson, maintaining friendships with both long after they had all established their own institutions in the United States.

Hutner was the long-time dean of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn, New York, an older institution that grew under his leadership. Hutner's pedagogic style was a blend of the Hasidic and Misnagdic elements of his own family's origins. His discourses, called ma'amarim, contained elements of a Talmudic discourse, a Hasidic Tish and a philosophic lecture. Although his title was rosh yeshiva, Hutner's leadership style more closely resembled that of a rebbe who expected fealty from his followers.

In his later years, Hutner established Yeshiva Pachad Yitzchok in Jerusalem, which is named after his own magnum opus. On one of his trips there, Hutner's plane was seized by Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorists in the Dawson's Field hijackings, which he survived.