Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman

20th century rabbi and Rosh Yeshiva in Baltimore, Maryland. He was born in Daŭhinava, in the Vilna Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus), where his father, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Ruderman, was the rabbi. He studied in Yeshivat Knesset Yisrael in Slabodka, under Rabbi Nathan Tzvi Finkel (the "Alter"), and the rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein, receiving semicha from the latter in 1926. In 1933, he moved to Baltimore, where he was immediately offered a rabbinical post. He accepted the position on the condition that he be permitted to open a yeshiva using the synagogue facilities; he named the new yeshiva Ner Yisroel, ('Light of Israel'). He wrote "Avodat Levi," which was published in his lifetime. An additional two volumes of his teachings were compiled and published posthumously by his students: ethical insights based on the weekly parsha named "Sichot Levi", and lectures on the 19th century work Minchat Chinukh and other Talmudic and halachic insights in "Mas'at Levi".