Bust of Gaon Elijahu

Elijah ben Solomon Zalman,, also known as the Vilna Gaon (Yiddish: דער װילנער גאון Der Vilner Goen; Polish: Gaon z Wilna, Gaon Wileński; { or Elijah of Vilna, or by his Hebrew acronym Gra, was a Lithuanian Jewish Talmudist, halakhist, kabbalist, and the foremost leader of misnagdic Jewry of the past few centuries. He is commonly referred to in Hebrew as ha-Gaon mi-Vilna, "the genius from Vilnius".Through his annotations and emendations of Talmudic and other texts, he became one of the most familiar and influential figures in rabbinic study since the Middle Ages.