Malkiel Kotler

Aryeh Malkiel Kotler was born to Shneur Kotler and his wife, Rischel, the daughter of Aryeh Malkiel Friedman, who is Kotler's namesake. He is the second of 9 children.[2] The elder Kotler was the rosh yeshiva (dean) of Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, New Jersey and son of the yeshiva's founder, Aharon Kotler. On his father's side, Kotler is the great-grandson of Isser Zalman Meltzer.

Upon the death of his father in 1982, Kotler was named to the position of rosh yeshiva of Beth Medrash Govoha. Serving together with him as roshei yeshiva are Dovid Schustal, Yeruchem Olshin, and Yisroel Neuman,[3] who are all married to grandchildren of Aharon Kotler. At that time, the yeshiva had an enrollment of some 800 students. Since then, enrollment has grown more than 800%, to a current size of around 6,300 students. To manage the huge number of pupils, roshei yeshiva divide up the times they deliver shiurim (Torah lectures) in the various battei medrash (study halls) on campus. They have also appointed dozens of roshei chabura (heads of small study groups) to take responsibility for smaller groups of students.[4]

Kotler is a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah (Council of Torah Sages) of Agudath Israel of America.[5][6]

Kotler, who participates in the Daf Yomi study program, was honored with the saying of the hadran at the 12th Siyum HaShas at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.[7]

Kotler's first wife Hinda was the daughter of Yechiel Michel Feinstein and Lifsha, the granddaughter of the Brisker Rav, Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik. When Kotler traveled from their home in Israel to the US to visit his ailing father, his wife refused to join him. She claimed that he was trying to force her to move to the US, which went against her family's principles. While in the US, his father succumbed to his illness, and thereapon Kotler was tapped to succeed his father as rosh yeshiva of Beth Medrash Govoha. Hinda refused to join her husband in Lakewood or accept a get (Jewish divorce document) without a rabbinical court in Israel hearing the case; she refused to submit to an American rabbinical court.[8][9][10] In the face of this deadlock, Kotler was issued a rarely used exemption known as a heter meah rabbanim (permission of 100 rabbis). This allowed him to take a second wife upon the depositing of the divorce document for the first wife with the rabbinical court, to be effectuated by her accepting it whenever she wishes.[11] Several months later he married his second wife, Chana Leah Tikotzky.