Rabbi Moshe Zevulun Margolies
משה זבולן ב"ר שלמה זלמן
Rav, Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, New York CityDate of Death:
Tue. August 25, 1936 -
Elul 7 5696
Anyone with biographical information is asked to please send it in.
See CONTACT page for details. Thank you.
Directions to Kever: Mount Carmel Cemetery in Queens maintains computerized records and will provide a detailed location map upon request. Section: 1, Block: C, Map: 1A, Society: KEHILATH JESHURAN
Name Listed on Cemetery Database: MARGOLIES, MORRIS
Biographical Notes:
Photo Caption: Rav Moshe Zevulun Margolies, Credit: Institute For Judaic Culture and History (IFJCAH)
Credit: Yeshiva University
Photo Caption: Rav Moshe Zevulun Margolies speaking at Madison Square Garden, Credit: Moreshes Chachmei America’s Archives
Photo Caption: Rav Moshe Zevulun Margolies’s official seal as Chief Rabbi of Boston, Massachusetts, Credit: Institute For Judaic Culture and History
Credit: Yeshiva University
Photo Caption: RAMAZ along with John Calvin Coolidge (30th President of the United State), d. 1933, Moreshes Chachmei America
Credit: Needed
Source: Jewish Forward, August, 1936
Source: Togblat, March 11, 1918
Photo Caption: Rabbi Joseph Lookstein (L) grandson-in-law of Rav Margolies and founder of the RAMAZ school in New York City, Credit: Institute For Judaic Culture and History (IFJCAH)
Bio Information:
A number of books and articles have been penned on the life and times of Rav Moshe Zevulun Margolies often referred to by the acronym RAMAZ.
« Previous: Rabbi Yaakov Dov Ber SchatzNext: Rebbe Eliezer Lipa Weisblum »
The rav had a son Reb Shlomo Zalmen in Cleveland OH. who was a Volzhiner Talmud, he was struck in an accident at a young age in 1917 and passed away.
His body was brought over to NY where he was buried in Mt. Carmel Cemetery.
anyone with more info?
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=41513&st=&pgnum=26
Rabbi Margolies was born in the small Lithuanian city of Meretz, not far from Kovna and Slobodka. On his father’s side, he was the grandson of Rabbi Abraham Margolies, chief of the bet din of Telshe, and of Rabbi Wolf Altschul, chief of the bet din of Lutzan who traced his lineage to Rashi. On his mother’s side, he was the grandson of Reb Eliyahu Krosczer, the brother-in-law of the Vilna Gaon. Ordained by his uncle and by Rabbi Yom Tov Lippman Halpern, the rabbi of Bialystok in the year 1876. He served as rabbi of Sloboda for 12 years. In 1889 he was invited to assume the chief rabbinate of Boston. In 1906 he was called to the rabbinate of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York, a post which he held until his death. His primary occupation was study. The Talmud was always open on the dining room table. He began study at five in the morning and he would make a siyyum on the completion of the whole Talmud every year on the yahrzeit of his mother. It meant that he covered seven pages of the Talmud every day. Rabbi Margolies introduced the system which supervised the distribution of kosher meat in New York City. He served as president of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada. He founded the New York Kehillah and the Central Relief Committee (later absorbed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee). An early Zionist, Rabbi Margolies was a member of the Mizrachi Organization of America. He also served as president of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Yeshiva (which ultimately became Yeshiva University) for several years, presiding over the ordination of a generation of Orthodox rabbis.
Gifted with a sharp and crisp wit, he used it not to entertain people but to drive home a point and to help solve a problem. He was consulted by people of all religious persuasions on both personal matters and communal issues. On one occasion, he was consulted by the impresario Meyer Weisgal who had scheduled a performance of “The Romance of a People” at the Polo Grounds in New York on a Saturday night in late August which coincided with the first selihot (penitential service). The performance was to start 8:00 in the evening which, at that season of year, would involve violating the Sabbath. Weisgal wanted the rabbi to grant absolution for the Sabbath violation. “Mr. Weisgal,” the rabbi responded, “You came to the wrong Moses; I would have to refer you to the original Moses. He was the one who gave us the Sabbath.” A wise and witty observation ended the inquiry.
His last public appearance just months before his death was at a Madison Square Garden rally against Hitler’s Nuremberg laws. He had to be carried on to the stage. His hands trembled, but his voice never wavered, as he read his message. When he finished, 20,000 people rose to their feet in reverence and appreciation. He was known to many as the RaMaZ (an acronym for Rabbi Moses Zevulun).
Thanks HL for the remarkable Biography, it would be noteworthy that the photo of his apearance in MSG at the rally against nazism is available and can bee seen in the link below
http://www.ramaz.org/public/mission.cfm
And the Ramaz School in Manhattan is named in his memory.
I found a Mazel Tov wishing to Rav Margolies in Hamelitz 1894 while he was Rabbi in Boston upon the marriage of his daughter Chava to Hirsch Feingold.
It was signed by Rav Margolies Father-in-Law Y. Abramowitz, anyone with more information in the son-in-law Feingold or the father-in-law Abramowitz?
http://www.jpress.org.il/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:LowLevelEntityToSaveGifMSIE_TAUHE&Type=text/html&Locale=hebrew-skin-custom&Path=HMZ/1894/03/22&ChunkNum=-1&ID=Ar01100&PageLabel=10
I was interested in Rabbi Margolies because he came from Meretz. My late father, Rabbi Elias Margolis, and my late uncle, Max Leopold Margolis, well known scholar, also came from Meretz, and my Dad knew Harry Fischel as well. The family is descended directly from Yom Tov Lippman Heller. I am curious as to the similarity of names-my grandfather, Rabbi Isaac Margolis, has his named mispelled in the Encyclopedia Judaica, and I wonder if we are in some vague way related to the KJ Rabbi Margolies. I never heard my Dad mention him, but my family came to the USA in 1884, and my Uncle was a professor at HUC where my Father became a Reform Rabbi who left the movement to follow his bent for Zionism, returning to the Conservative movement under Solomon Schecter. As far as I know I have no Orthodox relatives, but you never know. Rabbi Reichel wrote an article in The Jewish Week, and the Name of Rabbi Herbert Goldstein, his grandfather, rings a bell. I also own a copy of THE MARGOLIS FAMILY, by Dr. Neil Rosenstein, originally from So. Africa, and don’t recall any reference to Rabbi Margolies. I’d appreciate hearing from anyone with information if it exists. Ruth M. Kaufmann
hello.
my grandfather founded Beth Israel 1901 cambridge, mass. it was fashioned after R’b’
Margolies Beth Isreal Baldwin Place North End
Boston. He is buried from Beth El cemetery Baker St. I search time and time and no records are left from R’bi. Margolies Boston I thought he might have married my grandparents or they came to his shul when he arrived. I still must find vital statistics of Mass. If any notes or papers exist I wish to know. I have been at the New England Jewish Archieves while writing a biography of grandfather who passed in 1935 1st
av at 63. Am at the facility now.
Meretz is a town associated with my Margolis family (I’m a distant cousin of Ruth Kaufmann above) and I visited it in June 2012 and saw the large cemetery lost in the pine forest, the impressive former Jewish school and synagogue. According to another cousin, she was told that her great great grandmother (a Margolis by birth, born in Kalwariya) was related to Rabbi Margolies. Numerous members of our Margolis family lived in Meretz over the years, including David Tebele Efrati who wrote Toldot Anshei Shem which gives the genealogy of the family. I’d be very interested in exploring whether the two families are related, considering they were in Meretz and in the same area of Lithuania in the same era.
Letter written by RAMAZ Margolies in an effort to help the Telshe yeshiva:
http://search.archives.jdc.org/multimedia/Documents/NY_AR2132/00037/NY_AR2132_04788.pdf
My wife’s name is chaya Sara margolese.
Her grand father dr Oscar margolese was born
In Karlsruhe Germany of parents who were in transit from Lithuania. Oscar’s parents were first
Cousins. They came from rassianai very close to
Khrazai in fact oscars father joseph looks exactly
The same as your moshe Zebulon we have a photograph from 1909 in Montreal the resemblance is picture perfect as cousins. Joseph’s wife Dina lehrnblatt’s father was a rabbi in a place called sassmacken in courland for 58 years
According to ovchinsky His brothers were dovid an expert in dinei mononos. His brother in law was Avraham Shmuel Dubitsky who Rov in me retch as well as other places in courland and thence Montreal. One daughter married Gabriel elyon
From the family luntz another grand daughter
Married the nephew of the adderett as well as a
Brother in law of ay kook. An d Russian chief rabbi
Rav olwang of plungen and petersberg
I would like to talk to relatives about this family as we also have a family tradition of seven generations of rabbis going back to the levush
According to information about my Great Aunt Mikhle (Minnie) Shohet Singer, she was a cousin to Rabbi Margolies. The rabbi married Minnie and was mentioned in various newspaper milestones. Minnie’s sister Eta was the wife of Rabbi Chaim Nosan Shohet, who was also a rabbi in Boston and NY. Minnie’s father was Avraham Shlomo Schochet.. possibly married to Leah. I don’t know what the actual connection is.
Does anyone know how Rabbi Margolies was related to his uncle, Rabbi David of Meretz? That is, whether Rabbi David was a sibling of one of Rabbi Margolies’ parents, or the husband of a sibling?
http://kevarim.vohost.us/rabbi-shlomo-zalamam-margolies/
Rabbi Abraham Margolies had been principal of Brooklyn’s New Hebrew School founded in 1920
in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn 148 Stockton Street “to teach Orthodoxy tempered with modernism.” See Abelow’s
History of Brooklyn Jewry.
Might these two Rabbi Margolies have been related?
Responding to Laurel’s question on how RaMaZ was related to Rabbi David. From the biographical notes in R. Joseph Lookstein’s unpublished biography, “He (R. Moshe Zevulun) was privately educated by his uncle Reb David’l Krosczer, the Rabbi of Meretz” and then later “On his mother’s side he was the grandson of Reb Eliyahu Krosczer…” So, likely Reb David Krosczer was Reb Eliyahu Krosczer’s son, making him the RaMaZ’s uncle on his mother’s side.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.shulcloud.com/727/uploads/bulletins/1996/Summer%201996%20-%20Memorial%20Tribute%20to%20Rabbi%20Moses%20Zevulun%20Margolies.pdf
Hi All,
Another long lost cousin here. RaMaz was my great great grandfather. His daughter Esther, also my mother’s name, was my mother’s grandmother.
I know that Esther Margolies (who oddly went by Smith for a time) married Harry Adelman (Eidelman?) but I’m unclear how the two met and married in Chicago. Both are from Lithuania but I’m unclear if from the same town or there was another arrangement made in US to marry them. Any ideas?
Who was r moshe Margolis snl of r nuchumka of Horus a
Pinny – you are referring to a different rav. The son in law of Rav Nachumke of Horodna was Rav Velvel Margolis over here: https://kevarim.com/rabbi-gavriel-zev-velvele-margolis/
The other thing in his obituary that seems to tie Rabbi Moshe Zebulon Margolies to the other Merecz Margolis family is his grandfather being Wolf Altschul. Altschul is a family that married with the other Merecz Margolis family. The granddaughter of Sulka Margolis Sterling, married Shmuel Altschul, son of Eliezer Altschul born circa 1844 in Mariampole.
I was just there yesterday. In the office’s database he is not morris margolies as it says here on the page but rather moshe or moses (I forgot which one). When I asked them how to get to morris they sent me someplace else.