Career
Childhood
Rabbi Yisraeli was born in the city of Slutsk, in the Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus) to Rabbi Binyamin and Chava Isralite. Rabbi Binyamin was the rabbi and Av Beit Din (Chief Rabbinical Judge) of Koydanovo, near Minsk, devoting himself to its spiritual rehabilitation after World War I. Rabbi Binyamin was arrested by the Soviets for teaching Torah to community members and sent to Siberia, and subsequently, all contact with him was lost. Chava was later murdered by the Nazis.
As a youth, he learned in the Talmud Torah and Yeshiva Ketana under Rabbi Yehezkel Abramsky in Slutsk.
This during the period when Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer was the Rosh Yeshiva.