About Elazar Shach
Elazar Menachem Man Shach (Hebrew: אלעזר מנחם מן שך, Elazar Shach; January 1, 1899 O.S. – November 2, 2001) was a Haredi rabbi who headed Lithuanian Orthodox Jews in Israel and around the world from the early 1970s until his death in 2001. He served as chair of the Council of Sages and one of three co-deans of the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, along with Shmuel Rozovsky and Dovid Povarsky. Due to his differences with the Hasidic leadership of the Agudat Yisrael political party, he allied with Ovadia Yosef, with whom he founded the Shas party in 1984. Later, in 1988, Shach criticized Ovadia Yosef, saying that, "Sepharadim are not suitable for leadership positions", and subsequently founded the Degel HaTorah political party representing the Litvaks in the Israeli Knesset. From the 1970s onwards, Shach was publicly critical of Schneerson, accusing Chabad of false Messianism by claiming Schneerson had created a cult of crypto-messianism around himself. When Zalman Sorotzkin died in 1966, Shach became president of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, before later resigning from the Moetzes after the other leading rabbis refused to follow him.
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