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Photo Caption: Letter written by the 6th Lubavitcher Rebbe (Rayatz), addressed to Rav Warhaftig, Credit: N/N

Source: Moreshes Chachmei America (MCA)

Source: Hapardes

Photo Caption: Rav Shalom Menachem Mendel Mahram, Credit: David Maharam

Photo Caption: Rav Mordechai Jholin (Yolin), Credit: Moreshes Chachmei America’s Archives
Bio Information:
Kehilas Mordecai

Prior to Philadelphia the Rav served near Kiev, Ukraine .

Photo Caption: Rav Yaacov Tzvi Erusalimsky, Credit: Moreshes Chachmei America’s Archives

Photo Caption: The Rav’s uncle, Rav Moshe Nachum Erusalimsky, Cheif Rabbi, Kielce, Poland, d. 1914, Credit: Moreshes Chachmei America’s Archives

Photo Caption: Registration card, Credit: Moreshes Chachmei America’s Archives

Photo Caption: Letter by Rav Nachum Olinsky, Credit: Moreshes Chachmei America’s Archives

Photo Caption: Rabbi Yaakov Goldfarb, Credit: BETH ISRAEL CHRONICLE

Photo Caption: Original Beth Israel Congregation building, Credit: BETH ISRAEL CHRONICLE

Bio Information:
Rabbi Yaakov Goldfarb, a renaissance man who had many interests and talents, left his native Lithuania for America in 1890 when he was not yet 20. He was fluent in Lithuanian, Russian, German, Hebrew and Yiddish. He was a mohel, able to perform ritual circumcisions, a shochet, or ritual butcher; a chazzan or cantor; and he studied Talmud and Torah. He stopped in New York, then Pittsburgh, the largest Jewish community in Western Pennsylvania. It was from there that Rav Moshe Shimon Sivitz, spiritual leader of the Orthodox Jews in Pittsburgh, chose Connellsville for Rabbi Goldfarb’s first congregation. Only a month later, Rav Sivitz recalled Rav Goldfarb for another, more permanent assignment, one which lasted a half century.

Jacob Samolsky, head of the Washington Jewish community, sent for his niece, Zelda Simon, a native of Vilna transplanted to London, to come to Washington to become the bride of Rav Goldfarb. Rav Sivitz performed the wedding ceremony. After a decade in London, Zelda Goldfarb was expert in English and became her husband’s teacher. With adding English to his list of languages, Rav Goldfarb also added the duty of secretary of the Beth Israel Board of Directors and took minutes for the board for the next 50 years.
Source: BETH ISRAEL CHRONICLE

Myer Derkheim performed his first Brit Milah (Jewish ritual circumcision) in Portsmouth, New Hampshire when he was only 26 years old. The final circumcision at which he presided as mohel took place in 1818, the year of his death. During the 44 intervening years, Derkheim traveled the length of the newly created United States and new country in which he had settled, and he officiated at the sacred rite of initiation into the Jewish faith another 75 times; each he recorded faithfully, on these pages. His peregrinations to perform the sacred task took him from Maine to South Carolina, visiting both established Jewish communities and small outposts of Jewish life in rural America. Although Jewish tradition calls for the circumcision to be performed on the eighth day after birth, a close examination of the dates of circumcision in this register reveals that, in practice, many of the circumcisions performed by Derkheim, took place much later. The high neonatal mortality rate that prevailed in the eighteenth century meant that some circumcisions were delayed for health reasons. Derkheim’s own son Moses, whose birth and circumcision are both recorded in this register, did not undergo circumcision until he was 11 months old. The dearth of practitioners of the ancient rite and the great distances between Jewish communities meant that circumcisers rarely found their way into the hinterland and some youngsters had to wait years before the mohel came. Jacob Rader Marcus, the doyen of American Jewish history, explicitly referenced the importance of Meyer Derkheim’s circumcision register as a testament to the fidelity to their faith, exhibited by the Jews of even the most distant American towns and villages. In addition to his career as an itinerant mohel, Derkheim was one of the founders of the Jewish cemetery in Charleston S.C. in Richmond & Petersburg, VA as well as in Philadelphia.

Photo Credit: VirtualJudaica.com reference library

Photo Caption: Rav Shmuel Salant d. 1908, Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, great-grandfather of the Rav Nosson Nuta Salant. This photograph made for Pearsons Magazine just a few days before the Rav’s passing, is believed to be the only portrait for which the Rav sat. Credit: Institute For Judaic Culture and History

Bio Information: 
Rav Kaminetsky delivered a moving eulogy for Rav Shmuel Salant in Pittsburgh on 5 Elul, 1909, a few days after his passing.

Source: American Jewish Year Book

Photo Caption: Rabbi Eliyahu Zev Kochin, Credit: Needed

Photo Caption: Rabbi Eliyahu Zev Kochin, Credit: Needed

Photo Caption: Advertisement announcing the passing of Rabbi Eliyahu Zev Kochin, Credit: Needed

Credit: IFJCAH

Photo credit: The Jewish Criterion

Photo credit: Pittsburgh Press, September 26, 1920, page 6

Photo Caption: Rabbi Yechezkel Yehoshua Ovsovitz, Credit: Daniel Adler
Note: Apparently Rav Ovsovitz did not like his picture taken.  The story is that the kids made noise to
draw him outside…you can see he is kind of smirking in the picture.

The Rav also served in Fall River, Massachusetts and Denver, Colorado and passed away en-rout to the land of Israel

Photo Caption: Rabbi Avroham Yitzchok Ovsovitz, Credit: Daniel Adler

Credit: Daniel Adler

Photo Caption: Rav Pressman who was originally from Vilna passed away in Philadelphia, Credit: Rabbi Binyomin Yudin, Mason, OH

Credit: Institute For Judai Culture and History (IFJCAH)

Photo Caption: See inscription, (L) Rabbi Yisroel Shlomo Zalman Baurer of Wilkes-Barre, (C) Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Krevsky, (R) Needed, Credit: Congregation Sons of Israel

Bio Information: 
Rav Krevsky was a longtime member of the Agudath Harabonim.

Photo Caption: Rav Eliezer Pupko, Credit: Needed

Photo Caption: Rav Eliezer Pupko, Credit: Moreshes Chachmei America (MCA)

Photo Caption:  Rav Eliezer Pupko (R) along with Rav Meir Sharf of Brooklyn (L), outside  The White House, c. 1945, Credit: Life Photo Collection