Dovid Tavele

Rabbi Dovid Tevele Rubin was a Lithuanian rabbinic scholar born around 1794 in Turets, a town near Mir, to Rabbi Moshe Rubin. At about fifteen he entered the yeshiva of Volozhin, studying under its founder, Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, and absorbing that school's method of close talmudic study. He headed the rabbinical court in Stowbtsy (Steibtz) before being appointed, in 1848, to lead the community of Minsk, one of the foremost centers of Jewish learning in the region. His scholarship reached a wide readership through two works: Beis Dovid, a collection of responsa on Jewish law that appeared in 1853, and Nachalas Dovid, containing responsa together with novellae on the talmudic tractates Bava Kamma and Bava Metzia, published after his death by his son-in-law. He died in 1861.