Michael Levi Rodkinson (1845 – January 4, 1904) was a Jewish scholar, an early Hasidic historiographer and an American publisher.

Rodkinson’s literary works cover topics in Hasidic historiography as well as Judaic studies associated with the Haskalah movement.

Michael Levi was named after his grandfather, Aaron ha-Levi ben Moses of Staroselye, a prominent rabbi of the Chabad movement, who created his own Hasidic group in Usha and then in Starosjle.

Rabbi Isaac M. Wise publicly defended Rodkinson after he faced criticism in the pages of the American Jewish press.

(Until then, Hebrew was mostly used as a kind of Jewish and Rabbinic lingua franca for works of scholarship in letters, Talmud, halakha, philosophy, ethics, Kabbalah, and hassidut while Yiddish was used as a spoken language by Jews across Ashkenaz.