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Photo Caption: Rav Nisson Yablonsky, Credit: Hebrew Theological College

Photo Caption: Advertisement announcing the arrival of Rav Yablonsky to these shores, Credit: 

Bio Information:
Rav Yablonsky  of Stavisky, Poland was born in 1876 and was the first Rosh Yeshiva of Bais Medrash l’ Torah (Hebrew Theological College). An outstanding talmidim of Slabodka, he was accepted as Rav of Slabodka in 1908 and later as Rosh Yeshiva of Slabodka. He was active in rescue of the Yeshiva in the aftermath of World War I. He came to America in 1922 and was immediately recruited by Rabbi Rubenstein to be the Rosh HaYeshiva of Beis HaMidrash L’Torah. He passed away suddenly on the 28th of Shevat 5688 at the age of 52. Some of his shiurim were published posthumously by his talmidim as the sefer נצני ניסן
Source: Hebrew Theological College

Credit: Reb Yitzchok Alter
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Credit: Reb Yitzchok Alter

Photo Caption: Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzinski d. 1940 (right) conversing with Rav Shimon Shkop, Credit: N/N


Photo Credit: iGmc LLC

Bio Information:
Located in the East Bronx on Bryant Ave and 177th Street, Yeshiva Rabeinu Chaim Ozer named for the Chief Rabbi of Vilna, Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzinski, existed from about 1945 until approx 1964. Around 1958, it relocated to 2084 Arthur Avenue in the West Bronx. While Rav Garfinkel was the Rosh yeshiva (Dean) one Mr. Zaretzky served as executive director. Rabbi Pinchos Twersky (son of the Loyev Uman Rebbe) was on the staff as well. Sometime during the 1950’s Rabbi David Savit of the Hunts Point Jewish Center joined the Yeshiva.  The yeshiva had grade 1-8 and taught in Yiddish.

Photo Caption: The Yeshiva building as it stood in 1940, Credit: Moreshes Chachmei America 

Photo Caption: The Yeshiva building as it stands today at 2084 Arthur Avenue, Credit: Google

Rosh Yeshiva Mesivta Torah Vodath d. 22 Sivan, 2005 Anyone with information is asked to please send it in. See CONTACT page for details. Directions to kever: Beth David Cemetery 300 Elmont Road Elmont, NY 11003

Satmar Rav of London d. 21 Tammuz, 2006 Anyone with information is asked to please send it in. See CONTACT page for details. Directions to kever: Kiryas Yoel Cemetery Schunnemunk Road (Between Berdichev Drive and Seven Springs Road ) Kiryas Joel ( Monroe ), NY 10951 (Near the ohel)

Photo Caption: Rav Pinchos Hirschsprung, Credit: Cabadtalk
 
Photo Caption: Rav Yehuda Meir Shapiro, Lubliner Rav and Rosh Yeshia, Chachmei Lublin  , d. 1933

Photo Caption: Yeshiva Chachmei Lublin as it stood when it first opened  in 1930, Credit: Kevarim.com


Photo Caption: Yeshiva Chachmei Lublin as it stands today (Winter, 2011), Credit: Kevarim.com

Bio Information: 
Rav Hirschsprung, a student of Rav Meir Shapiro served as the Chief Rabbi of Montreal from 1969 until his passing. The Lubliner once said that already as a youth he knew 2,200 talmudic folios by heart. The Rav also shared a very close relationship with the Lubavitcher Rebbe and served as one of the Rosh Yeshivas at Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim of Montreal.

Photo Caption: Rav Shlomo Heiman, Credit: Needed

Rosh Yeshiva of Bais Yitzchok (Kamenetz) d. 22 Adar, 1958 (5718) Rav Grozovsky, the son-in-law of Rav Baruch Ber Lebovits was also the Rosh Yeshiva of Mesivta Torah Vodath in Brooklyn and Beth Medrash Elyon in Monsey, NY. Full bio to be posted. Anyone with information is asked to please send it in. See CONTACT […]

The Rav Kramer  married the daughter of great philanthropist Reb Shraga Frank of Kovno, Lithuania. Reb Shraga had four famous son-in-lawas, the other three were Rav Moshe Mordechai Epstein of Slobodka and later Chevron, Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer of Slutsk, Rav Baruch Hurwitz of Alexot, Lithuania and later Rosh Yeshivah in Slobodka. The Rav’s daughter married Rav Yaakov Yitzchok Halevi Ruderman, Rosh Yeshiva of Ner Yisroel, Baltimore.

Photo Caption: Rabbi Shalom Elchanon Jaffe at a Agudath Harabonim convention. Credit: Needed

Photo Caption: Advertisement announcing the passing and the unavailing of Esther Jaffe (buried at Union Field), the wife of Rabbi Shalom Elchanon Jaffe, Credit: The Jewish Morning Journal 1916 and 1917 respectively.

Credit: Yeshiva University

Photo Caption: Certification of Meir London’s Matzoh Bakery. The bakery which was located at 12 Bayard Street on the Lower East Side was originally established in 1871. Credit: Moreshes Chachmei America

Credit: The  Rise Of The Jewish Community Of New York, Grinstein / IFJCAH

Bio Information:
Rav Shalom Elchonon Jaffe was born in the town of Vabolnick, Lithuania just outside of Vilna in 1858. His primary teacher was his father a noted torah scholar and a descendant of Rav Mordechai Yaffe the Baal Halevushim (d. Posen, Poland, 1612). At the age of fourteen he was sent to the Volozhiner Yeshiva were he studied for six years and was ordained by Rav Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin (Netziv) and Rav Yitzchok Elchonon Spector.

Rav Jaffe participated in the founding convention of the Agudath HaRabonim in 1902 and was appointed director of its kashrus division. In 1905 he was elected its third president and remained an influential member until his passing. He was also among the Rosh Yeshiva at Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary.

Rosh Yeshiva Beis HaTalmud d. 7 Sivan, 2008 (5768) Rav Brus was born in Savin, Poland, his father was a Trisker chossid. He entered Pinsker Yeshiva at the age of 11 and soon after the Kaminetzer Yeshiva where he was among the youngest students of Rav Baruch Ber Lebowitz (1864-1939). Exiled to Siberia during the […]

Photo Caption: Rav Shimon Schwab, Credit: Wikimedia

Bio Information: 
Rav Shimon Schwab was born and grew up in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. His father was a longstanding members of the Israelitische Religionsgesellschaft (IRG), the Orthodox Jewish community that had established its own independence from the Reform Judaism-dominated general community. The IRG had been led until 1888 by Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch and was then under the leadership of his son-in-law Rav Solomon Breuer.
Rav Shimon completed the Realschule, the local school that combined religious studies and general subjects in conformation with the Torah im Derech Eretz ideology propagated by Rav Hirsch. After the Realschule he was a full time student for a number of years in the Torah Lehranstalt, the local yeshiva founded by Rav Breuer.
In 1924, at age 16, Rav Shimon enrolled in the yeshiva of Telshe where he studied intensively for three years, and afterwards for two years in the Mir, both in Lithuania.
In 1930, he spent a weekend with Rav Yisroel Meir Kagan (the Chofetz Chaim). The visit made a strong impression on him, and he would often refer to the encounter in public speeches throughout his life.
After receiving semicha (rabbinic ordination), Rav Schwab relocated to Germany, where he married Recha Froehlich of Gelsenkirchen, and worked for two years as Rabbinatsassessor (assistant rabbi) in Darmstadt before accepting the post of community rabbi in Ichenhausen, Bavaria.
In Ichenhausen, Rav Schwab worked to establish a traditional yeshiva that would teach Mishnah and Talmud. He also published a booklet titled Heimkehr ins Judentum (Coming Home to Judaism, published in 1934) exhorting his Jewish contemporaries to devote more time to in-depth Torah study and abandon their fascination with modern culture and social progress. Soon after its establishment, the Yeshiva ran into trouble as threats were made by local Nazi activists. Soon after, through the American Orthodox leader Rabbi Dr. Leo Jung he got in touch with a community called She’erith Yisrael in Baltimore. He travelled to the United States, and after a trial period the community elected him as a rabbi. The family was therefore able to apply for visas and escape the Holocaust.
In Baltimore, Rav Schwab became a local leader of Orthodoxy, hosting the annual conference of Agudath Israel several years after his arrival. He was involved in the first Jewish school for girls, Bais Yaakov, and traveled to San Francisco in the late 1940s to act as a lobbyist during the early activities of the United Nations.
In 1958, Rav Schwab was invited to join Rav Joseph Breuer in the leadership of the German-Jewish community of Washington Heights, located in New York City. This community, widely regarded as the spiritual continuation of the pre-War Frankfurt kehilla (community), had been close to the Rav’s heart, and with Rav Breuer’s increasing age and infirmity he took on many leadership roles until the latter’s passing in 1980.
From then until in passing at the age of 86 he continued to lecture and teach until his health deteriorated. He was succeeded after his death by Rav Zechariah Gelley, the Sunderland (England) Rosh Yeshivah who had already joined the kehilla several years earlier (Elul of 1987) as Av Beth Din and Mara D’asra.
Rav Schwab, being a product of both the German Torah im Derech Eretz movement and the Eastern-European yeshiva world, initially identified strongly with the latter. During the 1960s, however, it became apparent to him that the continued emphasis on religious studies and downplay of secular education would be harmful to the community as a whole. He thus wrote his pamphlet “These and Those”, in which he champions the Torah im Derech Eretz approach as being equally valid. (The title of the pamphlet is a quote from the Talmud – Eilu va’Eilu are the words of a Living God”, emphasizing that both approaches are divinely sanctioned.) Other points often discussed in his work the independence of Orthodoxy and the perceived materialistic excesses and expenses of the modern world, especially at weddings. He did not shirk from difficult and potentially controversial questions, such as those concerning the Jewish view on the age of the universe and problems in harmonizing a 165-year gap in traditional Jewish history with scientifically accepted calculations.
Source: Adapted from the Biographic notes in Rav Schwab on Prayer, Wikipedia, and Yisroel (Sidney) Strauss

Credit: Yeshiva University

Photo Caption: Rav Shlomo Polachek with his students in Lida, 1910, Credit: YIVO

Photo Caption: Rav Shlomo Polachek, Credit: Needed

Credit: IFJCAH

Photo Caption: Commemorative magazine in honor of the Rav’s passing, Credit: IFJCAH

Bio Information: 
Rav Baruch Ber Lebowitz (d. 1939), Kaminetzer Rosh Hayeshivah who at the time was visiting the United States was maspid (eulogized) Rav Polachek.

Moreh Dasrah Congregation Ahavath Tzion d. 9 Cheshvan, 1938 (5699) In addition to writing many seforim, Rav Fine was the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivas Beth Yehuda which during the 1930’s had an enrolment of more that 30 students. Anyone with information is asked to please send it in. See CONTACT page for details. Directions to […]

Photo Caption: Rav Yaakov Weinberger, c. 1965 at Yeshiva Ner Yisroel of Toronto, Credit: Courtesy of the Ottawa Jewish Archives

Photo Caption: Rav Shmuel Yaakov Weinberg, Credit: BALTIMORE JEWISH LIFE

Photo Caption: Rav Shimshon Pinkus, Chief Rabbi, Ofaqim, Israel d. 2001, nephew of Rav Shmuel Yaakov Weinberg, Credit: Needed

Photo Caption: Rebbe Moshe Teitelbaum of Ujhely, d. 1841, better  known as the Yismach Moshe, Credit:  Needed

Photo Caption: First edition title page, Yetev Lev, authored by Rebbe Yekusiel Yehuda Teitelbaum of  Siget, d. 1883, Credit: IFJCAH


Photo Caption: Rav Tzvi Hirsh Meisels, Credit: N/N

Bio Information:
Prior to becoming Chief Rabbi of Veitzen in 1930, the Rav led the Jewish community of Neimark, Galicia. In Neimark, the Rav headed a yeshiva with hundreds of students. In 1944, the Rav along with his entire community was deported to Auschwitz. After his liberation he was appointed Chief Rabbi of the Bergen-Belsen German/British Section DP Camp where he established Yeshiva Shearis Yisroel. In 1946, upon the encouragement  of his brother-in-law Rebbe Shlomo Halberstam, Bobover Rebbe he settled in Chicago, Illinois.

Rosh Yeshiva Rabbeinu Yitzchok Elchonon (RIETS) d. 22 Kislev, 1937 (5697) Rav Silman who hailed from Uzda, Russia was a leading figure at the Agudas HaRabonim. The Rav was also associated with the Beis Medrash L’Rabonim in Chicago and Mesivta Tifereth Jerusalem (MTJ) in New York City. Anyone with information is asked to please send […]

Photo caption: Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky, Credit: Wikipedia

Photo Caption: Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky and Rav Moshe Feinstein at a simcha, Credit: Needed

Photo Caption: Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky at a wedding, Credit: Kevarim.com

Photo Caption: Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky and the Novominsker Rebbe, Credit: Dos Yiddish Vort


Photo Caption: Rav Binyamin Kamenetsky davening at his father’s kever on the yahrzeit (29 AdarI, 2016), Credit: Shmuel Botchy Amsel, Brooklyn, NY

Photo Caption: Rabbi Yaakov Menachem Sokol along with part of his family c. 1915 in Brisk Poland, left to right daughter Adele Frank who lived in New York, son Nachman who lived in Toronto, Rabbi Sokol, Rebbetzin Gitel Sokol, and a daughter whose name unknown to me. Credit: Reuben Sokol

Photo Caption: Rabbi Yaakov Menachem Sokol c.1930, Credit: Reuben Sokol

Bio Information: 
Rav Sokol a student of Rav Chaim Soloveitchik of Brisk received rabbinical ordination from him. Prior to his moving to New York the Rav stopped in LA where he headed a yeshiva. Of his children two daughters Mindel and Scheindel, and a son Shmuel perished in the Holocaust HY”D.

Photo Caption: Rav Yaakov Moshe Kulefsky, Rosh Yeshiva, Ner Yisroel  Baltimore, Credit: Ari Koretzky

Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin d. 1 Av, 1963 (5723) Rosh Chodesh Anyone with information is asked to please send it in. See CONTACT page for details. Directions to kever: Beth David Cemetery 300 Elmont Road Elmont, NY 11003 Location: Jericho Avenue, between Jackson and Monroe Reb Irving Bunim, the noted askan (community advocate) is buried directly […]

R”M, Yeshiva Rabbeinu Shlomo Kluger d. 20 Sivan, 1965 (5725) Anyone with information is asked to please send it in. See CONTACT page for details. Directions to kever: Beth David Cemetery 300 Elmont Road Elmont, NY 11003 (718) 343-4000 (Location: Needed)

Moreh Dasrah Congregation Bnai Dovid d. 9 Elul, 1935 (5695) Rav Aishiskin, a Moreh Dasrah and Rosh Yeshiva in Detroit for over thirty years wrote two seforim Dvar Yechezkel and Mareh Yechezkel. The Rav passed away in Detroit after a prolonged illness that left him paralyzed for the last six months of his life. Anyone with […]

R”M, Yeshiva Rabbeinu Yitzchok Elchonon (RIETS) d. 25 Cheshvan, 1917 (5678) Anyone with information is asked to please send it in. See CONTACT page for details. Directions to kever: Union Field Cemetery 82-11 Cypress Avenue Ridgewood, NY 11385 (Location: Path 69, look for Jacob Shapiro)

In addition the Rav served in Yampol, Russia and Corona, (Queens) NY.

Rosh Yeshiva Zichron Mayer, Mountaindale, NY d. 23 Adar I, 1997 (5757) Anyone with information is asked to please send it in. See CONTACT page for details. Directions to kever: Vizhnitzer Cemetery in Monsey, NY RT. 306 (at the intersection of Brick Church Rd) Spring Valley, NY 10977 (Left side of the cemetery behind Vizhnitzer […]

Photo Caption: Rav Yehuda Heschel Levenberg in New Haven, Credit: Institute For Judaic Culture and History (IFJCAH)

Photo caption: The last know picture of Rav Yehuda Heschel Levenberg, Credit: Institute For Judaic Culture and History (IFJCAH)

Photo Caption: Advertisement announcing Rav Yehuda Heschel Levenberg visit to Jersey City, Credit: The Jewish Morning Journal, May 13, 1917

Bio Information: 
Rav Yehuda Heschel Levenberg first position in the United States was the Chief Rabbi of Jersey City.

Photo Caption: Rabbi Yehuda Weil, Credit: Yeshiva University 

Credit: Moreshes Chachmei America

Credit: Rabbi Zevulun Charlop

R”M, Orthodox Rabbinical Seminary, New Haven, CT d. 4 Tammuz, 1928 (5688) Anyone with information is asked to please send it in. See CONTACT page for details. Directions to kever: Congregation Beth Israel, Vilner Lodge Cemetery Jewell Street New Haven, CT 06515 (Along the main path) Photo Credit: Werner Hirsch, New Haven, CT