Rabbi Berel Wein, zt”l: A Talmid Remembers

 

 

When people think of Rabbi Berel Wein, they often recall his extraordinary ability to bring Jewish history to life. He helped countless Jews feel connected to our rich and timeless heritage. In truth, who else in modern history has transmitted so much of our past to so many?

Through his tapes, lectures, books, videos and films, Rabbi Wein reached hundreds of thousands, some even say over a million. His voice carried into homes, classrooms and shuls, allowing Jews of every background to feel part of the great story of our people.

What made his work unique was not only the medium but the message. Rabbi Wein traveled across the globe, speaking to yeshivah students and federation audiences alike, bridging worlds that were often far apart. Wherever he went, he built connections, opening doors to Torah and history in a way that was approachable, authentic and inspiring.

There is another element of the bridge Rabbi Wein built that feels especially personal to me, something I may be uniquely able to share. He was, for so many, a hashkafic bridge into the world of the Lithuanian yeshivah.

Perhaps this was because he himself was part of the first generation of American-born boys who had the opportunity to absorb the personality and depth of the European yeshivah world and translate it into a language an American could understand. Many of his contemporaries let that connection slip away, but Rabbi Wein rose to the challenge. He discovered a way to bring the richness, relevance and passion of that world into his own life and avodas Hashem. This was something he absorbed deeply from his rebbeim and his family. They themselves were people who had lived within the rich spiritual life of European Jewry and then found themselves in America, struggling to connect with American youth. Not all succeeded, but Rabbi Wein was blessed with family and teachers who did find that way. He would often tell us, with such warmth, about Rabbi Yisrael Mendel Kaplan, who struck a deal with the boys: If they would teach him English through the newspaper, he would teach them Gemara. To Rabbi Wein, this was the perfect example of building bridges.

He also loved to share stories of the great gedolim who would visit Miami, and how he would help them navigate the American scene while giving them a taste of his own world, even as he absorbed theirs. These stories carried with them not just history, but a model of how to stand between two worlds and bring them closer together.

He created a place for so many who might otherwise never have found their way into the olam haTorah.

For me personally, Shaarei Torah was a place that served as a bridge. When I entered Rabbi Wein’s yeshivah in Monsey in eleventh grade, I was very far from understanding what it meant to be a ben Torah and ben yeshivah. My parents and I were able to entertain Shaarei Torah because it had very serious general studies and a diverse student body, many of whom were focused on going to college with SAT prep. In twelfth grade, I took all college credits and finished high school with a year’s worth of credit at Ramapo College of New Jersey.

It was through this opening that I met outstanding rebbeim and a beis midrash full of serious bnei Torah and masmidim. When I began Shaarei Torah, I had only a very basic understanding of the Torah world. After two years of hard work and the dedicated chinuch I received there, I graduated with the special award in limudei kodesh and went off to Eretz Yisrael to continue learning in the most serious of environments.

A sweet example of Rabbi Wein’s teaching approach took place at the end of twelfth grade. Our class graduation trip included a visit to the Kings Dominion amusement park in Virginia, followed by a drive north to Washington, DC, to see the newly opened Holocaust Museum. By that time, I felt I was too frum for an amusement park, so instead I flew down to DC with Rabbi Wein just for the museum portion. On the drive from DC back to Monsey, we stopped in Philadelphia for a baseball game. The class chipped in and bought our rosh yeshivah a Chicago Cubs cap, and there he was, sitting with us in the bleachers, in his suit and tie, surrounded by his talmidim. For me, it was a powerful lesson in how far he was willing to go to create connection. To this day, so many of my classmates feel an enduring closeness to him and to his love of Torah, no matter how diverse their hashkafos and communities have become.

 

Rabbi Wein in center (with Cubs cap) and the author two to the right (in Phillies cap) | Courtesy of Rabbi Yerachmiel Garfield

The main ideological relationship I developed with Rabbi Wein began a few years later, after I graduated from Shaarei Torah. I went to a very Chareidi yeshivah in Eretz Yisrael. While the Torah learning was extremely fulfilling, I could not connect to the hashkafah. I simply couldn’t find a place for myself within the Chareidi world in Eretz Yisrael, and I found the experience frustrating. I took my avodas Hashem very seriously and was learning on an intense level, but I could not embrace the outlook I encountered there.

Around that time, Rabbi Wein made aliyah. A few talmidim arranged a Friday morning Chumash shiur, and it was there that I began to reconnect with him. Through those shiurim, I saw how Rabbi Wein was able to synthesize the values of the authentic Torah world with a hashkafah I could truly connect to. Once again, he helped me build a bridge, this time between being a genuine ben Torah, steeped in Chareidi learning, and the reality of my own life and upbringing.

He never put others down in order to build Torah. Instead, he celebrated so many of our great leaders simultaneously. This gave his talmidim the opportunity to feel connected to the rich diversity of our gedolim without ever feeling distanced from the values they cherished so deeply. He made room at the table for the Ponovezher Rav, the Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook, and Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, and so many more, to all have a place together. In doing so, he allowed his talmidim to feel that they too belonged at that table, without needing to sacrifice who they were. By emphasizing the shared core values, the chashivus of Torah, and the strength of our mesorah as the central anchors, he created an abundance of genuine opportunities for connection and growth.

Although he was never formally recognized as a leader of the broader masses of Klal Yisrael, in his quiet way he very much was. Since his petirah, countless people have come forward with stories of how he built connections for them to Torah and how his message reached them in personal, lasting ways. He created a place for so many who might otherwise never have found their way into the olam haTorah.

In more recent years, some of the talmidim were zocheh to have regular Q&A sessions with him, where he shared his thoughts on current events. There was one topic on which he became more passionate than he usually allowed himself to be: the responsibility of the yeshivah community to extend a hand to other groups of Jews and engage them fully. He reminded us of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter’s idea to establish a kollel in every Reform temple as a way to combat assimilation, and he implored us to continue reaching out and building bridges so that all Jews could find a path to connect with Torah.

For me personally, I am forever indebted to Rabbi Wein for building a wide and rich bridge that allowed me to cross into the world of Torah, ensuring that I could access the true legacy of our nation and carry it forward to the next generation with kedushah and taharah.

 

Rabbi Yerachmiel Garfield Ed.D. is a proud musmach of Rabbi Berel Wein, zt”l, the Head of School at Yeshiva Toras Emes in Houston, and the author of ArtScroll’s bestselling book When They Were Young (2025). He is also the host of the popular Chinuch Today podcast.

https://jewishaction.com/web-exclusive/gesher-shel-kayamah-the-wide-bridge-of-rabbi-berel-wein-ztl/?

With The World in Utter Chaos, Peabrain Trump Is Focused On His Ballroom

 

Aug 20, 2026 Read online

At the Court On Friday, the Trump administration urged the Supreme Court to pause a lower-court ruling that would halt construction of a new White House ballroom. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, the private nonprofit challenging the construction project, responded to this request on Tuesday, asking the court to leave the ruling in place. The matter is now fully briefed, so the court's response could come at any time. On July 27, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on its emergency docket to clear the way for the implementation of President Donald Trump's executive order on mail-in voting. Twelve states later echoed this request in their own application. One week later, the group of 23 states and the District of Columbia challenging the order asked the court to deny these requests. Last week, the Trump administration urged the court to "promptly" issue its decision. Morning Reads Trump tells Supreme Court 'unprecedented' threats make ballroom vital Maureen Groppe, USA Today In its final expected brief at this stage of the White House ballroom dispute, the Trump administration asserted that "[f]inishing the president's $400 million ballroom is a national security 'imperative,'" and that "any delay in the project 'presents unacceptable risk,'" according to USA Today. "When the President, his staff, his family, and the White House complex are not fully secure, time is of the essence," wrote U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer. As USA Today noted, "[u]nless the Supreme Court intervenes, a judge's order halting the above-ground portion of the project while the legal fight continues will go into effect on Aug. 21."

Trump 2.0 has deleted or altered nearly 400 US datasets, endangering public health, education and more

The Bad Joke

Health data appears to be most affected by administration’s attempt to wipe findings that don’t align with its priorities, tracker shows. A database of federal law enforcement officer misconduct records. A survey measuring physical, sexual and emotional violence against children and youth. Real-time pollution readings collected by air quality monitors from US embassies around the world.

These are among the hundreds of federal datasets that the Trump administration has taken down or altered as part of its aggressive campaign to wipe all mentions of data findings that do not align with the administration’s priorities.

Over the past year and a half, at least 28 federal datasets have been deleted and another 338 data collections have been modified, according to an online tracker released last week from dataindex.us, a group of data policy experts, researchers and developers that formed last year to monitor changes to government data.

“We’re at a very vulnerable point as a nation,” said Denice Ross, former US chief data scientist under the Biden administration and a co-founder of dataindex.us. “We’re facing a future where we are not going to have the information that we need to make decisions that will save lives and benefit American communities.”

The tracker includes detailed information about deleted or altered datasets from more than 60 federal agencies that span the environment, labor, law enforcement and other topics. But datasets on health appear to be the most affected by the Trump administration’s crackdown, comprising about 40% of the total number of terminated or altered data collections tracked by dataindex.us.

One of the main changes to these health datasets is that they no longer collect information on queer and trans people – as part of Donald Trump’s executive order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”.

Multiple Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) surveys, for example, have removed questions about respondents’ gender identity. These include the National HIV Surveillance System, the primary source of case data for HIV infections, the National Violent Death Reporting System, the CDC Diabetes Prevention Recognition Program, the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey and specific surveys evaluating Prep uptake among gay men and in communities of color.

In addition, there are at least four health datasets that are no longer being updated at all, including the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration’s (Samhsa) Drug Abuse Warning Network, a surveillance system that doctors and public health researchers used to track drug-related emergency room visits in near real-time to spot emerging overdose trends.

“These data are critical for identifying emerging epidemics and what parts of the population are most vulnerable to different types of health conditions,” said Thomas Babor, a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut who specializes in public health and addiction.

“We need to know what direction the trend is going, whether it’s the beginning of an end; we need to learn from prior episodes of epidemics and how they were responded to and what impact the responses had,” Babor said. “Taking down, even temporarily, some of the most important surveys that we have, especially for comparative purposes, is like we’re erasing our institutional memory for public health.”

Other deleted datasets include the US Department of Agriculture’s twice-annual survey of farm employers that counted the number of farm workers employed and their wages that informed the minimum pay rates for H-2A visa workers and a National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) survey of the pay and working conditions of teachers and principals at public and private schools across the country.

Christopher Dick, a co-founder of dataindex.us and former chief of the population evaluation, analysis and projections branch at the Census Bureau said they launched the online tracker because it was difficult to know exactly how many federal datasets had actually been deleted.

Government agencies aren’t required to notify the public when data collections are terminated, and some datasets have simply stopped updating because of a lack of staffing while others have been quietly pulled from federal websites with little notice. Some federal datasets also change or update on a regular basis, so it can be hard to figure out what is actually permanently deleted compared with a regular update.

“The question we’re trying to answer is: are certain datasets being taken away that have an impact on the American people?” Dick said.

The group identified important deleted or altered datasets through a combination of research about how the dataset was used, crowdsourcing from media reports, government employees, and people who used the datasets, monitoring social media, and tracking notices posted about proposed regulations from the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

The dataindex.us tracker is not a complete list, and is probably still an undercount of all the deleted or altered datasets there are, said Ross. But the hope is the tracker is just a starting point.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/aug/18/trump-federal-data-deleted-altered

Destroying American Medical Supremacy One "Executive Order" at a time ----- New data on exemptions from state vaccine mandates for schoolchildren come a week after President Trump signed an executive order calling to scale back childhood shots

 

More U.S. Parents Opting Children Out of Vaccine Requirements, C.D.C. Reports

At a time when measles and other potentially deadly diseases are spreading, more American children are receiving exemptions allowing them to attend school without the routine childhood shots that can protect against those illnesses.

Roughly 4 percent of kindergartners in the United States were given a nonmedical exemption for at least one vaccine during the 2025-26 school year, a 18 percent jump from the previous year, according to new data released on Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That rise, the largest annual increase recorded in more than a decade, comes as a growing number of states look to loosen vaccine mandates or even do away with them entirely.

Exemption rates varied dramatically by state. While all states allow students to opt out of vaccine requirements for certain medical conditions, some also allow exemptions for religious or personal reasons.

In Utah, which has some of the most relaxed laws around school vaccine requirements, nearly 13 percent of kindergartners had a religious or personal exemption for at least one routine shot. The state is also in the midst of a monthslong measles outbreak that has infected more than 700 people. New York, which stopped allowing parents to opt out for religious reasons in 2019, reported no non-medical exemptions.

The new data has deepened concern among public health experts that American communities are losing the levels of immunity needed to protect against a number of highly contagious illnesses.

The findings were released a week after President Trump issued an executive order calling for children to get fewer vaccines. While the executive order cannot force states to change their vaccine policies, it was the latest in a series of actions by the administration that experts have warned are likely to undermine confidence in vaccine safety.

Even small dips in vaccination rates can leave the nation vulnerable to highly contagious diseases, like measles, said Dr. Sean O’Leary, a member of the infectious disease committee at the American Academy of Pediatrics. The country is in the midst of the worst year for measles in recent history, as the virus continues to spread through pockets of under-vaccinated people around the United States.

“Even though these drops in the last couple of years have been relatively small, they’re meaningful,” Dr. O’Leary said. “They are leading us to have diseases that we really should not see here in the U.S.”

In a statement, the Department of Health and Human Services said that the C.D.C. “continues to encourage parents to discuss vaccination options with their doctors.”

The gap between a large increase in exemptions, and only a minor decline in vaccinations, could be at least partially explained by the fact that there were fewer children this school year whose vaccination status was unknown.

During the pandemic, the share of children with missing records — meaning those who had neither a vaccination record nor an exemption on file — shot up. But more families now seem to be filing formal exemptions, leading the number to rise more dramatically than the vaccination rate has fallen.

Vaccination rates have been declining in the United States for years. They fell during the Covid-19 pandemic, as routine immunizations were disrupted and as mistrust in the medical establishment grew, and they have not yet rebounded.

Still, the new data show that childhood vaccination rates remain high overall: About 92 percent of kindergartners received routine vaccinations for diseases like measles, pertussis and polio.

“Despite everything we’ve seen around vaccines over the past several years, the large majority of parents continue to support vaccines and continue to vaccinate their children,” said Jason Schwartz, an associate professor of health policy at the Yale School of Public Health.

Public health researchers noted that while a vast majority of parents are still vaccinating their children, there are places within the United States where rates are far lower than 92 percent. That includes in places like Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and Spartanburg County, South Carolina — both at the center of large measles outbreaks this year.

The rise in exemptions from vaccine mandates is a dangerous trend, said Dr. Walter Orenstein, the former director of the National Immunization Program at the C.D.C.

Vaccine mandates also help protect children who cannot get vaccinated, and even those who have gotten the shots, Dr. Orenstein said, since no vaccine is 100 percent effective.

Many people have gone so long without encountering a vaccine-preventable disease like measles that they do not see the need to get immunized against it, he added.

“Vaccines are victims of their own success,” he said. “And we’re beginning to see that even more.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/17/well/vaccine-exemptions-rates.html

 

 

Pediatric Anesthesia Article of the Day

 

Measles

Howard A. Zucker MD

I am furious and simply cannot believe that United States government and its Health and Human Services Department is calling into question the safety, efficacy and utility of vaccines….even Polio vaccines! What the fu**! Vaccine hesitancy which includes delaying shots, accepting some but not others, or outright refusal has become the official policy of the current American government. This is simply madness!

 MORE:

https://ronlitman.substack.com/p/measles-84f

Remembering IDF soldiers who lost their lives to hidden wound: 279 active-duty soldiers attempted suicide in a short period - Dov Landau אַשְׁרֵי יוֹשְׁבֵי בֵיתֶךָ, עוֹד יְהַלְלוּךָ סֶּלָה׃

 According to the report, combat soldiers made up 78 percent of all suicide cases in Israel during 2024, a sharp rise from previous years. The rate hovered between 42% and 45% from 2017 to 2022, and stood at just 17% in early 2023.

 

My heart is once again torn and hurting from receiving more devastating news.

Family and friends attend the funeral of Zehava Shaul, mother of fallen Israeli soldier Oron Shaul, at the Poria Illit Cemetery in northern Israel, July 26, 2026.

As I am watching and hearing the loud noise from an IDF helicopter flying above my house, two names that are deeply embedded in my heart come to mind - Alex and William. I will explain why in a moment.
 
I continued to watch the helicopter as it traveled over the beautiful Sea of Galilee, where jet skis and speed boats race around on the lake as people enjoy vacation time in Israel, instead of being hunkered down in bomb shelters. 
 
For a brief while, it looked like that would be our reality again, as we were out shopping and mentally preparing ourselves for another war with the evil regime in Iran. However, once again at the last minute, the American president called off a major strike, which reportedly would have included Israel. 
 
So once again it was a very surreal reality for almost all of us living in Israel, not knowing what tomorrow would bring. 
 
As my time of staying here in the Galilee is coming to an end, I am thankful for this time that has allowed me to continue healing and recovering from so much trauma and death.

Ultra orthodox jewish soldiers from the Hasmonean Brigade take part in a beret march after completing seven months of basic and advanced training, at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old city on August 6, 2026. 

Two souls tormented by war 

And yet, my heart once again is torn and hurting from receiving more devastating news.  The names I mentioned above - William and Alex- were two young Jewish Americans who, out of love for their people and Israel, traveled alone to Israel to enlist in the IDF.
 
Both of them fought bravely for the Jewish Homeland against her enemies, it brought scars and traumas so deep, that out of the desperation and trouble in their souls, they both ended their lives after leaving Israel and returning to America.

This news is absolutely devastating!  
 
Alex Miller was a 23-year-old man who was moderately wounded in one of the many heinous terror attacks we had in Israel! It happened in a 2022 car-ramming attack near the Nebi Mousa training facility while he waited with his fellow soldiers. 

Alex later returned to military service alongside his comrades in the Kfir Battalion after undergoing a painful and difficult rehabilitation process. 
 
His family and friends explained how Alex fought deep trauma for a long time that remained with him since that horrible terror attack that wounded him. In addition to this, there was the emotional pain and trauma that followed from the loss of his close friend, Noam Shemesh, who was killed in battle in the Gaza Strip.

Alex later returned to America, where he tragically ended his life. May he rest in peace and may his memory forever be a blessing!

William Shakin immigrated to Israel following the October 7 massacre and bravely enlisted in the IDF through the Mahal program for overseas volunteers. He served as a combat soldier in the Golani Brigade’s 13th Battalion in Gaza, where he lost dear friends fighting alongside him, which left him deeply traumatized.

During his service, Shakin lived at HaBayit Shel Benji, which provides housing for lone soldiers. After he completed his service, he returned to America, where he tragically ended his life. May he rest in peace and may his memory forever be a blessing!
 
My heart aches for the families of Alex and William, because there are just no words I can find to comfort them. 

Suicides and suicide attempts among IDF soldiers and veterans have surged since the October 7, 2023, onslaught and massacre against Israel and the subsequent wars in Gaza and Lebanon.  
At least 60 active and reserve soldiers died by suicide between October 2023 and April of this year, including 10 lives lost in this year alone.

279 active-duty soldiers attempted suicide in a short period

A report published by the Knesset Research and Information Center last October found that between January 2024 and July 2025, 279 active-duty soldiers attempted to take their own lives. I must admit that all of this tragic information is making me weep deeply. 
 
According to the report, combat soldiers made up 78 percent of all suicide cases in Israel during 2024, a sharp rise from previous years. The rate hovered between 42% and 45% from 2017 to 2022, and stood at just 17% in early 2023.
 
We can't even begin to imagine what our precious soldiers have endured in facing these savages from Hamas and Hezbollah - year after year -fighting this demonic evil that has attacked us.
 
The toll from Israel just defending her nation and people, with so many soldiers killed in battle, thousands of soldiers losing their limbs, or thousands of soldiers permanently injured in varying degrees, including soldiers with PTSD, is staggering.
 
As we now see some of them being so deeply traumatized, they see no other way than to end their lives; just how much is a nation supposed to take? And on top of all of this, Israeli soldiers are being hunted around the world when they go on some much needed vacation, its despicable!
 
On top of that, we continue to get heartbreaking news from the battlefields: Two reservist soldiers were just killed, and four were seriously wounded after being hit by an explosive device in the southern Lebanon town of Majdal Zoun. 
 
The slain troops were named as: Maj. (res.) Harel Birenstock, 34, a company commander from Nokdim; and Sgt. Maj. (res.) Tamir Vaknin, 33, from Eilat. Both served in the 55th Paratroopers Brigade’s 2855th Battalion.

May their memory be a blessing

May they rest in peace and may their memory be a blessing.

It's just devastating; our hearts are breaking for their families.
 
The Jewish Nation continues to bury its sons, either killed in battle or killed by their own hands after experiences of unimaginable horror and trauma; it shatters our hearts!
 
However, here is some good news and some justice in the midst of so much heartbreak: the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet have acknowledged that a special operation has been established with a dedicated unit named “Nili” to hunt down and kill every single despicable terrorist involved in the October 7, 2023, massacre on Israel.

Speaking to Channel 12 news, some of the Nili officers openly described their mission for the first time, detailing who has been targeted and the means used to locate and kill them.

According to the report, 2,800 people on Nili’s list have been killed, including the 1,200 terrorists killed by Israeli security forces in southern Israel during the horrific October 7th onslaught.

Among those eliminated have been the terrorists who kidnapped 85-year-old Yaffa Adar, 12-year-old Yagil Yaakov, Yarden Bibas, and Avinatan Or.

The hate is not limited to our precious soldiers only; we see over and over how Israelis are attacked while being on vacation around the world, just like what just happened to an Israeli mother and daughter vacationing on Thailand’s Koh Phangan Island.

They went to visit a waterfall where they encountered a man who asked where they were from.
 
After the daughter replied that they were from Israel, the man began confronting them over the war in Gaza, telling them, “I don’t like what Israel is doing there,” and “I’m against violence,” and then he launched a brutal physical assault on both women. 

This evil attacker beat the mother, repeatedly kicking her and striking her in the head until she reportedly lost consciousness. When the daughter ran to help her mother, she was brutally assaulted also.

The mother underwent emergency treatment for internal bleeding in her head and surgery on her ear. She is expected to have another operation, while her daughter underwent surgery to repair injuries to her nose.

This is just one of the horrific attacks we see on Israelis travelling around the world, its horrifying.

What has the world come to? But we know that a lot of this goes back to the lies and nasty propaganda that Hamas sends out from the Gaza Strip, and then it is broadcast by mainstream media without any filter to the world.
 
This includes the never-ending lies about starvation and genocide in Gaza (which never happened), but the media ate these lies, and they ran with it, as if it was the truth.
 
On the “consumer side” of mainstream media, it makes ignorant people around the world believe these outrageous lies by Hamas and serves to build up an unprecedented hatred towards the Jewish people and Israel.

It is for that reason, when hateful people now encounter Israelis citizens or Jews around the world, the hunt is on and they are being attacked in the most brutal ways.
 
At the same time, we continue to bury our sons and daughters in Israel, and others find themselves being discriminated against, boycotted, and marginalized, while the world looks away in shameful silence. 

These enemies can only spread lies, hate, and propaganda against the one nation they can't defeat militarily or politically, because Israel is divinely protected by the One Who created the Holy Land.

As for me, this is why I am here; this is why I endure the pain, the trauma, and the tears, because I will not stay silent!

I will continue to cry for each and every one of them, and share their names and stories with the world and stand united and mourn with all of their families!

Today we honor Alex, William, Tarel, and Tamir!

How precious you were, you all died so young not getting to live a long and good life, my heart is just breaking.

We will never forget you!

Rest in peace, brave warriors!

 

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-905749?

Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz zt"l - In Memoriam - His Yahrzeit - The Third Day Of Elul

Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz was born in the town of Willig in Hungary in 1886 into a family of G-d-fearing Sanzer chassidim. At a young age -- when he was already studying Shulchan Oruch Yore De'ah with Shach, Taz and the Pri Megadim -- he had acquired a name as a scholar who brimmed with deep religious passion. He studied under the Arugas Habosem, the B'eer Shmuel, and the Shevet Sofer, Rav Simcha Bunim Sofer --the three leading gedolim of Hungary at the time, and received semichah from them.

A person of deep complexity and contemplation, he pursued Jewish philosophy and mussar privately, and at a young age had completed the entire works of the Maharal, Kuzari, Mesilas Yeshorim, and works of chassidus. He avidly studied the works of Rav Samson Rafael Hirsch in the original German. He saw Rav Hirsch as his ideal because Hirsch had successfully devised a religious Jewish weltanschauung that could stand up to the challenges of modernity. (Nothing showed his diverse interests more than the fact that he spent his entire wedding dowry on buying a set of Zev Yaavetz's history books.)

Although Rav Shraga Feivel appeared an unassuming young man, he had a rare strain of boundless idealism running through his fabric. When he came across the statement in the gemora that, "Were Israel to keep two Shabbosim in a row, the Redemption would immediately come" he promised himself then and there that he would work to draw the hearts of Jews back to their Father in Heaven.

In the early years of the twentieth century, when Jews all over the world were blindly rushing to embrace enlightenment, communism, socialism and every other "ism" besides their ancestral heritage, his dream appeared as unpractical, wishful thinking.

At age 22 he married, and settled near his father's home in the town of Humina. In 1913, he decided to leave for the U.S. for reasons never clearly defined by him. Before he left, he received a brocho from Rav Yeshaya of Krestira, who foretold that he would accomplish great things in America.

The first few years in the U.S. Rav Shraga Feivel spent trying his hand at different professions. Although an expert at the laws of shechita, he saw after a day that this profession did not suit him. He taught in talmud Torahs in New York, Bridgeport and Scranton, before he returned to New York and opened an ice cream business.

Although he still dreamed of opening a yeshiva, he had discovered that in the U.S., all the power was concentrated in the hands of a talmud Torah's president and board of directors, and the principal and teachers were viewed as merely low level servants. He dreamed of succeeding in his business and with the funds, opening his own yeshiva. However, his business was not succeeding as planned, possibly because his head was more in his Torah studies than in ice cream.

Kashruth and educating the public

Rav Shraga Feivel was a lover of Jewish liturgical music; he and chazzan Yossele Rosenblatt became friends and together created The Jewish Light (Dos Yiddishe Licht) newspaper. The intent was to inform the Jewish public about the awareness of their heritage, shmiras hamitzvas, the importance of keeping the kashruth laws; and they wanted to give their secular brothers an alternative to The Forward (and The Workmen's Circle/Bund). He was way ahead of his times; the public was not interested for the most part in their message, and the paper folded leaving them deep in debt.

Rav Shraga Feivel, realizing that his business enterprises were failing, in the summer of 1921, after being pursued by various members of the board, he finally agreed to take a teaching job at Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, which at the time was a "talmud Torah" rather than a yeshiva. Many of the teachers were not shomrei Torah and mitzvos, a very sore spot in the side of Rav Shraga Feivel, and added to his hesitancy of joining the school. He was certain that the Torah could only be learned, if taught by frum teachers. A series of illnesses that struck him didn't allow him to take the job until Elul 1923, when he was appointed to teach the eighth grade class.

Rav Nesanel Quinn, a student who had arrived the year before and later became principal of Jewish studies in the yeshiva, recounts, "In the first days after he came to the yeshiva, even the worst students began to feel more positive about their Jewish studies. He tried -- and succeeded -- in making Torah study beloved to them, and in giving them the feeling of closeness to Hashem. They began to keep mitzvos not out of habit but out of deep feeling. He imbued one with pride to study Torah, and that nothing in this world could compare to Torah study."

The Yeshiva Leaps Spiritually

The board hired Reb Shraga Feivel for just six months on a trial basis instead of a year, as they had done with all the previous principals, and if they weren't satisfied, they could fire him. To their surprise, Reb Shraga Feivel told them that he wasn't even interested in a six-month contract. He offered that they could hire him on the basis that if at any point they were dissatisfied, they could fire him on the spot. All the previous principals had insisted on a detailed contract for an entire year.

Rav Shraga Feivel began the next day. He found a group of cool, impassive teachers whose resentment of him bristled under the surface. The teachers too were all of Polish or Russian extraction, and they could not respect the Hungarian man who "lacked up-to-date scholastic and educational training" and proudly sported a beard and payos.

But as the following weeks unfolded, and each teacher had the occasion to meet and discuss topics with him, they soon stood open-mouthed before Rav Shraga Feivel's vast knowledge. The teacher who was expert in Hebrew grammar soon discovered that Rav Shraga Feivel was a giant in dikduk. The teacher whose specialty was Jewish history soon discovered that Rav Shraga Feivel knew far more than he.

Within a few weeks, the entire staff was united in their reverence and respect for the new principal who each admitted towered far above him. Rav Shraga Feivel began his innovative program right away.

On his first day as principal, Rav Shraga Feivel dictated a letter to the members of the board. He wrote them that a person cannot be balabos (board member) over a yeshiva unless he appreciates Torah. He demanded that every one of them attend a Torah shiur at least twice a week. The board members were astonished -- but they complied.

Rav Shraga Feivel gave a shiur in the home of Reb Benzion Weberman where he impressed the committee members with his deep religious, educational and personal ideals. They began to understand that it wasn't sufficient for a child to have a Jewish education only until his bar mitzva years, which was the standard in America until then.

In addition to winning over the rebbes and the parents, Rav Shraga Feivel soon was idolized by the students. They had never seen a principal who taught with such heart and neshomoh. On holidays he made assemblies and parties, and would dance with the students. He would sing soulful songs "Kadsheinu" and "Vetaheir libeinu" with such ecstasy that all the students were swept up with the same emotion.

"It isn't the slightest exaggeration to say that Rav Shraga Feivel blew a new soul into us, of a natural Jewish approach to our Torah. We could clearly sense how the Shechina was present in every class. A new spirit blew in the life of the yeshiva -- and all this he did quietly, without noise, without giving orders."

Torah Vodaath's name began to spread far and wide in New York. There was no longer any need to recruit bochurim for the yeshiva and the problem now became how to find enough room for all the boys. The crowding forced the committee to open classes in rented apartments around the district. Classes were held in the Keap Street beis hamedrash, the Lincoln business school, and the Beis Aaron shtiebel on Division Avenue. At the same time, the spiritual growth fostered by Rav Shraga Feivel kept pace with the physical growth of the yeshiva.

The Mesivta is Founded

The idea of a Jewish high school was still far-fetched. When the end of the year drew near, Rav Shraga Feivel persuaded the parents of the eighth-grade boys to keep their sons in the yeshiva for "just one more year." Rav Shraga Feivel arranged for the youths to study in a local high school at night where courses were offered for adults who had not completed their high school diploma. He knew such a school would have less of an influence on his students than learning in a public school with youth their age. Besides the hours at night devoted to secular studies, the boys studied Jewish studies from early in the morning and even late at night after they finished their secular studies.

When the end of the year came around again, Rav Shraga Feivel convinced the parents to agree to just one more year. And when that year finished, the parents were willing to agree to another year. At that point, he found himself with a group of high school youths whose dedication to Torah study remained strong and unswerving.

Says Rav Nesanel Quinn, one of the students of this group, "Our study day was long and exhausting, but Rav Shraga Feivel pushed us to study Torah additional hours, on our own initiative, as it were, until late at night. I remember that he sat and studied Torah with us every Thursday night until almost midnight, and we felt that Torah study was so sweet that we almost didn't feel tired. Our load of studies was not easy, particularly if you compared it to the study program in a public school. But none of us ever complained. The frequent recesses of course helped to release the tension, but mainly what helped was that in our society, everyone was working hard and no one had it easy. So the heavy load on us wasn't viewed as anything extraordinary. We were so busy with our studies that we virtually had no time to spend on small talk."

When Rav Shraga Feivel was ready to implement his next educational endeavor -- the Mesivta -- he already had a group of older boys who had spent 12 years in intense Jewish education and the idea of continuing Jewish studies after elementary school was becoming more palatable.

When Rav Shraga Feivel asked to open a full high school division, with structured Jewish and secular studies offered within the format of the school in 1927, his request met with resistance from the board. The board, truth to tell, had nobly maintained the elementary school through unflagging and exhaustive efforts, but to undertake the support of a high school on top of that was a burden that the members saw as overwhelmingly difficult and perhaps unjustified.

Mr. Avrohom Lewin, a board member backed Rav Shraga Feivel. Despite the failure of Mr. Lewin's business during the growing Depression that hit America in those years, he staunchly agreed to buy a building at 505 Bedford Avenue for the Mesivta (as Rav Shraga Feivel called the high school to differentiate it from the elementary school, which was called "the yeshiva").

Shortly after Mr. Lewin purchased it, taking out large loans in his name, a real estate agent offered to buy it back from him at a much higher price -- that would have landed him a profit equal to three years of livelihood. But Mr. Lewin passed the difficult trial, and made the building available to the yeshiva. Eventually, the committee board agreed to take the Mesivta under its wing and pay for its cost. However, the burden of running and maintaining it fell upon Rav Shraga Feivel.

It must be emphasized what an immense achievement this was. Not only had Yeshiva Torah Vodaath acquired a sterling name as a yeshiva with undiluted Torah values, but it was the only yeshiva at the time with an excellent high school program accredited by the New York State Board of Regents. The other yeshiva schools, such as Rabbeinu Yaakov Yosef, Rav Shlomo Kluger and Tiferes Yerushalayim, were only elementary schools with at best afternoon programs for public high school students.

Rav Shraga Feivel's concept of the Mesivta program had no parallel in any yeshiva in the world -- and not just because he incorporated secular studies and a high school degree into the yeshiva. This in itself was an act of genius. He understood that for American Jewry to flourish, yeshiva boys must have a secular education. He insisted that his talmidim excel in the secular program as well. When he asked the European gedolim about the issue of secular studies in the yeshiva, the only shaila was could it be housed in the same building as used for limudei kodesh.(There were fanatics on the board, that insisted the yeshiva change its name from Torah Vodaath to a name that did not imply that there was daas outside of Torah. He strongly disagreed with that premise, as did Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch and the Rambam/Maimonides). 

Besides gemora being taught on a high level, he insisted that the curriculum include Chumash and Novi with their commentaries, the meanings of the prayers, knowledge of the 613 mitzvos, Jewish law, and sifrei yirah and mussar such as Sha'arei Teshuvah, Mesilas Yeshorim, and for select students, even Doros Harishonim, the detailed Jewish history book written by Rav Y. Halevi. Many of the latter courses he personally taught. He saw the utter importance of giving his students a solid foundation in Jewish faith and hashkofo that was taken for granted in the European yeshivos.

The atmosphere of the yeshiva was an unusual mix of Litvish learning taught by great Litvish scholars some of whom he brought over from Europe, with chassidic enthusiasm and soul which he himself injected. He integrated different approaches from various groups in Klal Yisroel and knew how to create a harmonious synthesis that appealed to his American students.

Although his influence permeated the yeshiva and every student in it, he humbly kept himself to the sidelines and refused to accept the title of "Rosh Mesivta" or even the more routine title of "Rabbi." He could not be found at the Mizrach of the beis hamedrash during prayers. He was the hinge on which the entire yeshiva turned, but to the unknowing eye, he seemed just an unassuming person filling a nondescript role. Who had ever heard of a man who built an entire yeshiva with mesiras nefesh -- only to refuse to take the mantle of honor it would bequeath to him?

In the shiurim Rav Shraga Feivel gave to the classes of the Mesivta he spoke constantly of Eretz Yisroel and the negative effect of college (he later altered his opinion, and asked Rabbi Hutner to apply for a college charter from New York State, under changing circumstances and an evolving necessity for many talmidim). Had he lived,  a college would have been built under the auspices of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath.

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE:

Courtesy of the Mendlowitz Family Archives and Philip Fishman

 In one shiur, to the astonished eyes of his students who didn't know if he was hallucinating or really meant it, he said that the day would come when he would found a kollel avreichim for them to continue their studies in Eretz Yisroel after their weddings. No one in their wildest dreams at the time even considered continuing their Torah studies after their weddings. Each student felt that his hands were full with just remaining in yeshiva for high school despite the disapproval of his parents, the mockery of his neighbors, the haughty looks of his more Americanized friends, and the spirit of materialism and heresy that blew in powerful gusts all around him.

The Mesivta grew, and Rav Shraga Feivel realized his dream of creating knowledgeable, deeply religious and committed Jews. Years later, he created Beis Midrash Elyon in an "unknown" town called Monsey near Spring Valley, where hand-picked married students engaged in high-level Jewish studies and where Torah students went in the summer for a combined program of summer relaxation and Torah study. This was the first kollel of its kind in the United States.

Wellsprings of the Mesivta

Rav Shraga Feivel created soldiers who went forth to Jewish communities outside of New York and founded yeshivas and saved the remnant of religious Jews from going lost. He sent students to found new yeshivos: Lakewood, Telz, and the Nitra Yeshiva, and he gave up his own sorely-needed supporters instructing them to help support new yeshivos that were opening up elsewhere. He founded Beis Midrash Elyon, for advanced Torah study at a kollel level. One of his greatest dreams came to fruition when Torah Umesorah, whose goal was to create day schools and yeshivos all over the world, was founded.

By the time Rav Shraga Feivel passed away in 1948, American religious Jewry was still small and tender, but had deep and strong roots. Yeshivas Torah Vodaath had sprouted numerous rabbis and activists that helped create the prominent religious Jewish communities that we see today spread out throughout the U.S. and Canada.

With the mighty personality of Rav Shlomo Heiman, the rosh yeshiva who taught the older bochurim of the Mesivta from the years 1933-1943, Rav Shraga Feivel produced the first team of Torah scholars of stature on American soil, all of whom had incubated in the classrooms of Torah Vodaath. They continued to reinvigorate Jewish religious life around the globe throughout the twentieth century.

The fabric of the American Jewish community began to change in the 1950s. The flood of survivors and the local religious community opened new yeshivos, the religious community burgeoned, a new religious-American weltanschauung developed which enabled a religious Jew to face American society with confidence and independence.

His love for his fellow Jew was expressed best by Rabbi Weissmandel in his book "The Unheeded Cry." "(Paraphrased) There was no rabbi in the U.S.A. that cared for the plight of European Jewry more than the saintly Rav Shraga Feivel, and helped greatly in the fundraising and hatzoloh efforts to save every Jew possible."

Rav Shraga Feivel took seriously ill in 1948. He was an ardent Zionist; he urged his son in-law, Rabbi Alexander Linchner, to go to Israel and save the Sephardi children from secularism. Boys Town Jerusalem was established in 1948, the largest yeshiva/trade school of its kind anywhere in the world.

He asked that he be buried in a non-monumented grave in the Arugas Habosem cemetery on Long Island until the situation in Israel would enable his burial there. He was laid to rest in his final resting place in Bnei Brak. Rav Eliyahu Dessler zt"l, in his will, requested that he be buried next to Rav Shraga Feivel. Until this day, the Kehillas Arugas Habosem has left his original grave empty.

It is not an exaggeration to say that there was no man that impacted the American Jewish landscape with such purpose, clarity of thought, and vision, as the saintly Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, zecher tzaddik v'kadosh levracha.

(Much of the material was taken from Shlucha DeRachmana (written in Hebrew) by R' Aaron Suraski who interviewed many family members. Mr. M. Samsonowitz gathered and had written much of the material. Although this piece had other important figures mentioned in the establishment of the American yeshiva movement, upon extensive research, I had discovered that they were greatly exaggerated to the point of being fabricated, and could not at all discern the true from the false, so I eliminated that material entirely. The above edited piece, is accurate, although not the entire story.)

For a biography (with pictures) which appears in

 "AMERICA's YESHIVA"  

Click Here 

Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, the American Mind, and the Educational Frontier of Israel - Boys Town Jerusalem - וְלִירוּשָלַיִם עִירְךָ בְּרַחֲמִים תָּשוּב וְתִּשְׁכוֹן בְּתוֹכָהּ

 

Boys Town Jerusalem Nine Acre Campus in the Bayit Vegan Section of Jerusalem

 

Rabbi Alexander Linchner zt"l

The pieces were beginning to fit together. And the most extraordinary part of the story is that Mendlowitz understood the architecture while much of it still existed only in his imagination.

Yet his vision was never confined to America. This is where the story takes a remarkable turn. 

Mendlowitz did not see the Jewish future as a choice between America and Eretz Israel. He understood that the Jewish people were rebuilding simultaneously in multiple centers. America was becoming a major center of Torah life, while the Land of Israel was emerging as the center of Jewish national sovereignty. If Jewish education was the foundation of Jewish survival in America, it would be no less important on the emerging frontier of the Jewish state.

And here the story leads directly to Rabbi Alexander S. Linchner. Linchner was born and raised in America, studied in the great European yeshivot before the Holocaust, and later became principal of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, working under the guidance of his father-in-law, Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz. Linchner would become the founder of Boys Town Jerusalem, (https://boystownjerusalem.org/ )carrying an important part of Mendlowitz's educational philosophy from Brooklyn to the emerging State of Israel.

The connection is therefore not incidental. It is generational. Mendlowitz had spent his life building an educational infrastructure for Jewish survival in America. Linchner carried that educational inheritance into the newly established State of Israel. The story of Boys Town Jerusalem begins in the extraordinary chaos of Israel's earliest years. The new state absorbed immigrants from countries and cultures across the Jewish world. Holocaust survivors arrived with almost nothing. Jews came from Yemen, North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. The country desperately needed educated young people who could build a modern society.

The challenge was not merely to provide food and shelter. It was to create human capital. Boys Town Jerusalem was founded in 1948 by Rabbi Alexander S. Linchner to provide education, support, values, and practical skills to young immigrants and disadvantaged youth. Its educational philosophy connected Torah values with academic, vocational, and technological education. The goal was not simply to preserve Jewish identity, but to equip young Jews to become productive builders of the Jewish state.

This was Jewish education entering a new frontier. The American day school had answered one question: How can a Jew remain Jewish in a free and prosperous Diaspora? Boys Town Jerusalem addressed another: How can a young Jewish state transform impoverished and displaced children into citizens capable of building a country? The answers were different, but the philosophy was remarkably similar. Education. Not charity alone. Not ideology alone. Not religious instruction disconnected from practical life. Education as empowerment. Education as dignity. Education as national reconstruction.

That is why Boys Town Jerusalem belongs in the larger story of Rabbi Mendlowitz's vision, even though Rabbi Alexander Linchner was its founder. Linchner's achievement was his own, but the institution also reflected the educational philosophy he had absorbed from his father-in-law. Accounts of the institution's history describe Mendlowitz's final charge to Linchner to do something for the education of children in Eretz Israel. Linchner answered that charge by building an institution that combined Jewish values with academic and technological education.

The symbolism is almost too perfect. Mendlowitz spent his life asking how Torah could survive in America. His final vision looked toward Israel and asked how Torah education could help build a Jewish state. The answer in both places was the same in its deepest sense: educate the child.

This was not merely a religious proposition. It was a proposition about civilization. A civilization survives when it can reproduce its knowledge. A nation survives when it can educate its young. A people survives when it can transmit memory without becoming imprisoned by the past. And a religious tradition survives when its children can understand why its inheritance remains meaningful in the present.

That is what Mendlowitz understood. His American vision was therefore far more sophisticated than the caricature of a rabbi attempting merely to preserve a disappearing European world. He was not simply preserving Europe. He was constructing something new. He took the intellectual seriousness of the European yeshiva and placed it inside an American framework. He understood the American appetite for education and used it rather than fighting it. He recognized that American parents wanted their children to succeed professionally and sought to ensure that Jewish education would not be presented as the enemy of that ambition. He understood that a successful Jewish community needed leaders, professionals, educators, businessmen, and scholars. And he understood that all of them needed roots.

This may explain why his influence reached far beyond the institutions he directly led. Torah Vodaath became a model. Torah Umesorah became a national mechanism. The day school movement became a communal norm. And the educational philosophy carried by his students and family eventually crossed into the developing State of Israel.

The post-Holocaust Jewish recovery was therefore not simply a return from destruction. It was a transformation of the Jewish educational imagination. The old question had been: How do we keep Judaism alive? The new question became: How do we build institutions so strong that Judaism can flourish? That is a radically different question. It moves the Jew from defense to construction.

And that is perhaps Mendlowitz's greatest legacy.

He understood that the American Jew did not need to choose between being American and being Jewish. He needed to be educated enough to know what each meant. He understood that the Land of Israel did not need only immigrants and idealists. It needed educated young people capable of building the technological, economic, intellectual, and moral infrastructure of a sovereign Jewish state.

In America, Jewish education became the defense against assimilation. In Israel, Jewish education became part of the construction of sovereignty. In both places, the child stood at the center.

That is why the story of Torah Vodaath, Torah Umesorah, and Boys Town Jerusalem should not be treated as three separate institutional histories. They are chapters in one larger story. Torah Vodaath represented the laboratory. Torah Umesorah represented the expansion. Boys Town Jerusalem represented the frontier. And Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz stood at the conceptual crossroads.

He understood that the Jewish future would not be secured by mourning the world that had disappeared. It would be secured by educating the children who would build the world that had not yet arrived.

The post-Holocaust Jew therefore inherited two obligations. The first was remembrance. The second was construction. Remember the six million, but educate the millions who came after them. Remember the destroyed yeshivot, but build new ones. Remember the teachers who were murdered, but train new teachers. Remember the communities that vanished, but build communities where Jewish children can grow.

This is where the Jewish recovery becomes more than a historical episode. It becomes a philosophy of Jewish survival.

The American experience also teaches another lesson that Mendlowitz understood with unusual clarity. Jewish survival in a free society cannot depend upon persecution to keep Jews Jewish. In fact, it must do precisely the opposite. The Jew must be taught to choose Jewish life when nobody is forcing him to do so. Torah must become compelling because it is understood, lived, studied, and transmitted, not because the outside world has made Jewish identity unavoidable.

That may be the greatest educational challenge of the American Diaspora. The enemy is not always the pogromist at the gate. Sometimes it is the comfortable world that asks no questions at all. Sometimes assimilation comes not through hostility but through indifference. Sometimes the most dangerous sentence a Jewish child can hear is not "You cannot be Jewish," but "It does not really matter."

Mendlowitz's answer was that it matters enormously, but the child must be educated to understand why.

That is the difference between inherited identity and lived identity. One can be born Jewish and remain culturally Jewish through family sentiment. But a serious Jewish civilization requires knowledge. It requires literacy. It requires teachers. It requires institutions. Above all, it requires children who know enough about their inheritance to make it their own.

The post-Holocaust generation understood this with extraordinary urgency. The survivors had watched a civilization disappear. The builders therefore refused to leave the future to chance. They built schools. They built yeshivot. They built day-school networks. They built educational institutions in America. They built educational institutions in Israel. They rebuilt the chain.

And Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz understood something that remains as relevant today as it was when he first confronted the American Jewish problem: the greatest threat to Jewish continuity is not always the enemy who wants to destroy the Jew. Sometimes it is the comfortable society that makes the Jew forget why he should remain Jewish.

Against that danger, there is one lasting answer: education. Not education as mere indoctrination, but education as knowledge. Education as memory. Education as intellectual seriousness. Education as the transmission of a civilization. Education as the confidence to engage the modern world without surrendering the Jewish world.

That was the Mendlowitz vision.

It began with Torah Vodaath and Bais Medrash Elyon. It expanded through Torah Umesorah. It reached toward Eretz Israel. Through Rabbi Alexander Linchner and the founding of Boys Town Jerusalem, it became part of the educational rebuilding of the Jewish state itself.

The Nazis sought to make the Jewish child the last link in Jewish history. Mendlowitz devoted his life to making that child the next link. That is the difference between survival and recovery. Survival says: We are still here. Recovery says: We are building what comes next. And education is where the next chapter begins.  

תיהי נפשו בצרור החיים

 

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