In many respects, a piece in the September 20, 2005 New York Times (please don’t suspect me; it was someone else’s discarded copy) on suburban discord over a new Orthodox institution was predictable in the extreme.

Mention the words “yeshiva/shul seeks to open/build in suburban New Jersey/Long Island locale” and many of us, by now, can easily write the ineluctable script from familiar experience, replete with the recurrent cast of characters: the mayor, either staunchly pro- or anti- the newcomers; the reactions of the locals, ranging from undisguised loathing to evasive posturing; the appearance of anti-Jewish graffitti and letters-to-the-editor; the politicians torn between placating the citizenry and welcoming the revitalization brought about by the newcomers; the local, sometimes, but not always, hostile non-Orthodox clergy (unless they’re non-Greek Orthodox, in which case they’re always sympathetic); and, of course, the incoming Orthos, long on cash but often short on finesse and PR skills.

And, indeed, most of the above make their appearance in this latest installment of Battleground Suburbia: Invasion of the OrthoSnatchers, being filmed on location in Roosevelt, New Jersey.

The article also included another inevitable feature of media reportage in general, one which most of us recognize from news stories that we’ve had first-hand knowledge of: distorted facts. In this case, at least, the errors were innocuous.

Regarding Ori’s question, I reject the forced choices — I think the majority of Jews would join Orthodox shuls without becoming observant. That is option 3. And I think that would be a vast improvement over the present situation.

In South Africa (where I lived for five years) there is no Conservative and only a very small Reform movement. Almost all South African Jews belong to O shuls, though few are observant. When they arrive in the US, many of them find themselves culturally comfortable in C congregations, whose services superficially resemble the services they are familiar with but whose rabbis and congregants are accepting of low levels of actual observance.

In practice — sociologically speaking — the change from O in South Africa to C in America usually results in a very rapid decline in the level of any observance, as well as a greased slide towards intermarriage, since interdating and intermarriage no longer carries any stigma in C congregations.

29 b Heshvan
On November 27 Ori Pomerantz posed a question under the heading, The end of heterodoxy?

Imagine that tonight there was a miracle, and tomorrow morning all the rabbis and chazzanim of the heterodox movements were to wake up orthodox.

The question is not so fanciful. I suggest that the newly Orthodoxy rabbis should remain in their heterodox shuls on the condition that they try to move the congregants towards Orthodox observance. Something similar took place in the middle of the previous century when it was common for rabbis who had graduated from Orthodox rabbinical schools to take pulpits of Conservative synagogues, or in nominally Orthodox shuls where (a) the mehitza had been removed, (b)most people drove on Shabbat, and (c)few kept kosher. Such rabbis would often stipulate that they assumed the pulpit on the condition that they would move the congregants in the direction of Orthodoxy, e.g. installing a mehitza or balcony, prohibiting cars from using the parking lot on Shabbat, etc. The steps by which this was accomplished and the implications for Ori’s question above, are told by many rabbis in Baruch Litwin’s book Sanctity of the Synagogue (out of print but available on amazon.com.) The chapters by Rabbis Riskin, Soloveitchik, and Dolgin are particularly moving.
I just spoke with the daughter of the late Rabbi Dolgin who succeeded with patience spanning many years, in installing a mehitza in his Beth Jacob synagogue in Beverly Hills. His daughter told me details of the story and she remembers sitting with her mother and a few elderly ladies in the balcony while the rest of the congregation was downstairs in mixed pews. Slowly, persistently, wisely her father moved the congregants to accept a mehitza in the entire shul. Rabbi Emanuel Feldman tells about his successes and setbacks until he finally succeeded in turning the tide in his now-thriving Orthodox Atlanta synagogue in his book Tales Out of Shul.

For a fascinating debate over which of the two issues, mehitza or parking lots, was the defining moment in the Conservative-Orthodox divide, see

For those still in doubt whether the Reform movement has become a wing of the Democratic Party, the results of last week’s Convention may resolve the question. According to the Washington Jewish Week, the resolutions passed “put the Union for Reform Judaism… front and center in the political debates roiling Washington.” But they also “place the movement… at odds with much of the organized Jewish community,” and, of course, at odds with many of its own members. At a time when the movement feels compelled to launch a new effort to attract converts, why are they pushing away so many of our own?

Rabbi Eric Yoffie established the tenor of the Convention, launching into a tirade against “the religious right” in which he compared opposition to the “gay rights agenda” to supporting the Nazis. “We cannot forget that when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations.” Of course, the banning of “gay organizations” is nowhere on today’s political radar. So unless you support redefinition of marriage, you support totalitarianism — or worse? I’m sure he made those few Reform Jews who still believe in traditional marriage feel right at home.

Ori Pomerantz is one of our more frequent commenters. He asked the following question as a comment to a previous post, seeking “our” response. So I sent the question around, and determined that several C-C writers are willing to attempt answers. I suspect that one of the things we will discover is that there is no one response, but a collection of individual opinions with some common threads.

We’ll post the answers over the course of the next week — but here’s the question:

One of the common themes of this site is the failure and futility of the heterodox movements. I’d like to raise a hypothetical situation, and read what you think about it. Please forgive me if this reads as disrespectful – that is not my intention.

Imagine that tonight there was a miracle, and tomorrow morning all the rabbis and chazzanim of the heterodox movements were to wake up orthodox. After praying shachrit the men would all go to their synagogues’ office, and tell the board that they cannot stay in their position unless the synagogue turns orthodox. The women would just resign.

When I lived in Israel, Yehuda Meshi-Zahav was often in the news — and never on the “right” side of the editorials. He was quoted as a spokesman for “ultra-Orthodox” demonstrators, protesting this or that government abuse of religious sensitivities and/or the religious in general.

This was at a time when the press had little patience for his views. I remember one evening when (as I saw personally) police violently assaulted innocent spectators of a demonstration. The next morning’s Jerusalem Post even carried a photograph of a yeshiva bochur with blood trickling down his face — he had, according to observers, come out only to call his younger brother indoors, but was set upon. That he was a victim of police brutality, though, appeared nowhere in the accompanying article. Rather, police were quoted as saying that they had acted with “maximal restraint“, and neither the writer nor any quoted source questioned this excerpt from Orwell. It was not a good time to be an Orthodox spokesman… but Meshi-Zahav took the challenge.

My, but how times have changed.

In my last post, I addressed the rather pessimistic prognosis of prominent Israeli Reform clergyman David Forman regarding the heterodox movements in Israel, and alluded that a recent JPost by David Golinkin might help explain things. But first, back to Forman for a moment.

In a JPost piece in 2001, Forman wrote at length about the injustice of so many fine Reform and Conservative clergyfolks in Israel, who have community service, army service, and peace activism to their credit, and yet are denied legitimacy, while Orthodox rabbis roam free, stomping on Reform prayerbooks, committing crimes and spewing hatred toward Arabs. At the time, I noted in a letter-to-the-editor that ” no amount of good works or reserve duty in the Israeli army should, on a rational level, be the criteria for rabbinic standing. Rather, whether the Jewish state should accord one the status of rabbi — teacher of Judaism — should turn on whether the religion he believes in and practices is that which has been known throughout millennia as Judaism. No honest appraisal of the facts would conclude that Forman’s Reform movement so qualifies. A belief system by, for and about Jews? Certainly. But not ‘Judaism.’ ”

But the truth is that there’s another response to be made to Forman’s elegy of inequity in rabbinic legitimacy, one that is amply illustrated by the recent Golinkin essay. The latter holds the prestigious title of president of Conservatism’s Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies and is considered, in his circles, an authority on Jewish law. In his October 24th piece, he holds forth on four “deeper messages which are easy to miss amid the enthusiasm of the holiday” of Simchat Torah. The first three are no cause for comment.

The fourth, however, is that there “is no better proof . . . than the holiday of Simchat Torah” for the Conservative movement’s assertion that “the Halacha developed from generation to generation and from country to country.” After all, writes Golinkin, “Ya’ari showed . . . this holiday began in Babylonia in the 10th century and spread to the entire Jewish world, with each ethnic group contributing new customs. . . . In France they added the Ata Horeita verses in the 12th century. . . In Ashkenaz, in the early 15th century they added a hakafa . . . while the Ari and his students in 16th century Safed instituted that there should be seven hakafot around the bima.”

Four days ago, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the leader of the Reform movement, gave what he called a sermon to the delegates attending the General Assembly of the Union for Reform Judaism. This was a long speech and it has already attracted considerable comment because of a connection he makes between opposition to gay marriage and Hitler’s opposition to gays. Much of the speech deals with intermarriage, specifically the need to welcome non-Jewish spouses, perhaps through a “formal ceremony of recognition” that might occur during “a dramatic point in the liturgical cycle.” And then we get the following:

“Rabbi Janet Marder asks non-Jewish spouses to come to the bimah on Yom Kippur morning and then has the congregation stand as she blesses them with the Birkat Kohanim.”

How much longer are we going to play the Am Echad game? Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch established the austritt community on far, far less provocation.

The Knesset has approved dissolution, and, one way or the other, it seems that Israel will be heading to the polls on March 28.

According to yesterday’s Jerusalem Post (yes, I regret not posting this yesterday, because now I cannot find the article on JPost.com), the only parties that objected to the date of March 28, in meetings with PM Ariel Sharon, were the two factions that comprise United Torah Judaism, Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah. They believed that the new elections should be after Passover.

After Passover?

Obviously they know exactly what they are doing. Perhaps they feel that the charedi public will be too busy doing Pesach cleaning to go to the polls. But March 28 is two weeks before Pesach, which seems like enough time in advance that people won’t neglect to vote. The campaign workers have to make Pesach too — and I remember volunteers putting in incredible amounts of time to get people to the polls.

UPDATED: A tallis and two pairs of tefillin were found in the Montreal airport… and contact has already been made between finder and owner. Thanks to at least one C-C reader who participated in making contact.

For years, Jonathan Rosenblum has written about the antics of Israel’s Supreme Court and its Chief Justice Aharon Barak. For most of those years it seemed few outside the Orthodox world were listening, but now it appears that others are taking note. While his column in today’s Jerusalem Post briefly mentions the latest — Chief Justice Aharon Barak’s unjustifiable opposition to the appointment of Professor Ruth Gavison to the bench, no fewer than two other columnists make it their focus.

The first of these is Caroline Glick, the JPost writer who was embedded with US troops during the invasion of Iraq. In a few lines, she points out how monolithic is the character of the court, and how minimal a threat Gavison poses to Barak. His opposition is comprehensible only if, in Barak’s vision, the court must be composed of ideological clones of… Aharon Barak.

Last Friday… Supreme Court President Aharon Barak went to war against Hebrew University law professor and human rights activist Ruth Gavison, who Justice Minister Tzipi Livni wishes to nominate to the Supreme Court. In public remarks, Barak launched a stinging attack against Gavison for what he referred to as her “agenda,” noting that it was “not good for the Supreme Court.”

The notion that the Supreme Court appointment of Gavison - a fellow secular leftist from his university - could get Barak bent out of shape is a sign of the insularity and juridical uniformity of his court. One can scarcely imagine how he would react were the possibility of nominating a religious, right-wing jurist to the court ever raised.

Last month I argued that Israel’s long-range survival depends upon substantially strengthening the Jewish component of Israeli identity (”Jews and Staying Power,” Oct. 21, 2005). Only a reinvigorated Jewish identity can provide the internal unity, attachment to Land, and national morale necessary to confront a future in which Israel will continue to confront neighbors bent on its destruction.

For many, any discussion of Israel’s identity as a Jewish state conjures up visions of a Torah state-lite and fears of incipient theocracy. For that reason, it is important to understand what forms a reinvigorated identity would take. Such efforts to foster a connection between modern-day Israelis and the historical Jewish people have nothing to do with a state run according to halacha.

Jewish identity is first and foremost a matter of education. Among the enumerated goals of the Education Act of 1953 were: to “teach Torat Yisrael and the history of the Jewish people, . . . to know Jewish tradition.” Talmud, biblical archaeology, and Tanach were all integral parts of a curriculum designed to create a sense of attachment to the historical people of Israel.

That goal is further from realization with each passing year. Once Israeli youth knew the highways and by-ways of the country, could name dozens of agricultural settlements, and attach Biblical verses to the sites that they visited. Today their knowledge of Israel often extends no further than the local mall and the nearest beach. When he was Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, Natan Sharansky announced that less than one-half of Israeli high-school students have even visited Jerusalem. Many have traveled more extensively in India and the Far East than their own country.

Though the cost in lives and to the economy from the more than two weeks of urban riots in France does not rival that from the July 7 suicide bombs in London, the former has sent a message nearly as terrifying throughout Europe. While France has the largest foreign-born population of any Western European country, every European country has similar urban ghettos that are “no-go” areas for police and firefighters. In Belgium, police officers are advised not to drink coffee in public during the Islamic month of Ramadan, when devout Moslems fast, and in Malmo, Sweden’s second largest city, ambulance drivers will not enter Moslem enclaves without police protection.

Copy-cat rioting broke out Germany and Denmark in the wake of the French riots. These riots herald, in the words of social critic Theodore Darymple, a new era, in which “the sweet dream of universal cultural compatibility has been replaced by the nightmare of permanent conflict.”

The large cites that surround Paris and other French cities were created in the 1960s and 70s to house immigrants, primarily from North Africa and Francophone West Africa, needed during France’s industrial boom. That boom ended in the ’70s, but those who came to fill the jobs in the factories, by and large, remained.

France’s sclerotic economy has produced few new jobs for the first-generation immigrants or for their numerous offspring. Over the last quarter century, the United States economy has produced 57 million jobs; the welfare economies of Western Europe have produced only 4 million. European labor laws make it so costly to hire a new worker and so difficult to fire them that few companies are willing to take chances on young, inexperienced, and poorly educated workers. As a consequence, among Moslem youth in France, the unemployment rate is estimated at around 40%.

My recent post about Israeli secularists being urged to play Monopoly and watch video in order to make their Yom Kippur fasting more tolerable created some interesting discussion. In connection with that, I just came across the following item, written in 1987 by Meron Beneviste ( who was once deputy mayor of Jerusalem). The quote is taken verbatim from the journal SOCIETY, published by Rutgers University ( Nov./Dec. 2005, 43:1) pp.23-24.

“We would observe Yom Kippur by loading quantities of food onto a raft and swimming out with it to an offshore islet in the Mediterranean, and there we would while away the whole day feasting. It was a flagrant demonstration of our rejection of religious and Diaspora values.”

Question for discussion: which do you think is preferred in the eys of G-d - the Beneviste maneuver, or the Monopoly/video maneuver?

Very, very few Jews understand the significance of Nostra Aetate, the Vatican II document whose fortieth anniversary passed last month. This is a pity, because even the most cautious and the most cynical should recognize that it just might have been the most significant development in our relationship with an adversary that battled us for millennia. Whether it fulfills this promise may depend, in no small measure, on our reaction to it.

Nostra Aetate (In Our Time) changed two thousand year old notions about Jews. For almost all of that time, two attitudes about Jews guaranteed contempt and persecution of Jews, as a matter of quasi-religious principle. The charge of deicide, that all Jews were responsible for the crucifixion, meant in the popular mind that Jews were guilty of the most heinous crime imaginable, and might be made to pay for it with their lives. They often did.

The second notion was replacement, or changes in the special relationship between G-d and Israel so clearly expressed in the Bible. With the rise of Christianity, the Israel of the Bible was “replaced” by the New Israel – namely practicing Christians. Jews had no further place in history, other than to survive till the end of time, bearing witness then to their mistake in rejecting the true religion, and along the way testifying to their degeneracy by living as the cast-offs of civilized society. The greatest gift one could offer them was the chance to convert. Alternatively, they could choose death. They often did.

Nostra Aetate upended both of these notions. It taught that Jews do not bear any more responsibility for the death of the Christian savior than any other people. It affirmed that G-d’s covenant with the Jewish people is unbroken and eternal.

Recently, I’ve been in an ongoing dialogue with a committed Jewish layman affiliated with the Conservative movement. He and I have argued on any number of occasions, and some might be very surprised to see me publishing his words with an expression of open agreement and admiration. Nonetheless, a recent contribution of his to a mailing list prompted a very positive dialogue about the importance of learning Torah. I was going to (and still plan to) post about the challenges of promoting Torah study outside Orthodox circles, but first and foremost I commended him for “getting it” — for realizing that Torah study is the highest priority for our Jewish future.

Here is his response.

Americans mark the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln every year on Presidents Day; Israelis mark the death of Prime Minister Rabin. The difference is telling.

Presidents Day celebrates the lives of the two greatest presidents and their enduring contributions to America. But far from celebrating Yitzchak Rabin’s very considerable contributions to the modern state of Israel, November 5 commemorates only his assassination. Rather than serving as a civic ceremony to bind the country, November 5 has become an annual club to bash a large segment of the Israeli population, which until today stands accused of complicity in Rabin’s assassination. Every year we find ourselves returning to the immediate aftermath of the assassination, when religious Jews all over the country found themselves subjected to taunts of “murderer.”

From the moment of his death, Rabin the symbol became far more important than Rabin the man. First, we were urged to push forward with the Oslo process for the sake of our slain prime minister, just as Knute Rockne once inspired his players to “win one for the Gipper.” Latter Rabin became the martyr for peace, who would have guided the Oslo process to a successful conclusion had he only lived. As late as November 5 2000, Leah Rabin was still beseeching Yasir Arafat to remember his “closeness with Yitzchak” and to rescind his post-Camp David declaration of war.

From the start, the earthy Rabin, with no shortage of very human foibles, was an unlikely candidate for beatification. Never mind that by the time of his death, much of public had already soured on Oslo. Polls at the time showed Rabin narrowly trailing Binyamin Netanyahu.

Saturday night 12 bMarHeshvan

Two brief comments on the Rabin memorial (the Hebrew yahrzeit is tonight) which is taking place in Tel Aviv as I write these lines, in the square where the Prime Minister z”l was shot 10 years ago.

Since last week (the Gregorian date of the murder was Nov.4), the newspapers have been filled with dozens and dozens of articles and features about Rabin from every angle. (One article in particular in Haaretz had several quotes from Rabin in which he had made extremely derogatory statements about settlers and religious Israelis. See “A decade without him.” ) Tonight there is a massive gathering in Rabin Square (reports vary from 70,000 to 200,000 participants), and former President Clinton is a featured speaker.

Comment #1. Following the shooting a decade ago, also on a motzei Shabbat, the most moving comment I heard was the following. The morning after Rabin was murdered I happened to see the daughter of the Klausenberger Rebbe ztz”l here in Kiryat Sanz, Netanya.(The Rebbe of Sanz-Klausenberg’s first wife and 11 children were murdered during the Shoah; he remarried, moved to the US, had seven children, then came to Netanya, founded a hassidic enclave here and built Laniado-Sanz hospital ).

There is a potential for conflict in all social relations, and it exists not because people are selfish or foolish or have other shortcomings — although these are factors — but because it is natural for people to look at the world they are in through their pair of eyes and no one else’s and in terms of their own interests. The negation of self-interest may strike us as moral and often it is, yet it is not what we ought to expect and it is not always the moral thing to do. While it is generally preferable to avoid conflict, at times the preference should be in the other direction.

Since conflict is inherent in human relations, with proximity enhancing the prospect of its appearance, the crucial question is how disagreements are handled, whether with a sense of restraint or in a no-holds barred fashion, with the goal being to defeat the other side. Societies invest much in conflict resolution, and for good reason, because there is always the danger that disputes will turn violent or exact other serious costs.

That religious groups are not immune from internal discord and personal disputes is a proposition too obvious to need explication. The added ingredient of ideology or theology to self-interest increases the prospect of serious intra-group and inter-group conflict. This prospect increases in turn the obligation of those who lead religious groups to be careful about the rhetoric they use and the actions they endorse, lest religious and ideological conflict get out of control as true believers believe that their mission is sacred and they must prevail.

The dangers of religious conflict are sadly on display in Williamsburg within the Satmar chassidic group, as followers of rival claimants for dynastic succession are battling it out in synagogue, court and wherever else their twain meets. There has been violence and arrests, and because neither side is particularly blessed with a sense of restraint, what lies ahead is frightening.

Readers who did not follow the story to the end of the New York Times article may have missed the more interesting piece of evidence unearthed after two millennia of repose.

The uncovering at Tel Zayit of an extremely early (10th century BCE) stone with all 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet was major news in print and electronic media. The forms seemed to the archeologists to be shaped like transitional forms between the Phoenician alphabet used earlier in the region and the emerging Hebrew free-form script. It is being hailed as the ancestor of all modern writing.

This would be important enough, were it not for the fact that according to a popular school of archeology, the Hebrews of that century weren’t significant enough to have done that.

The modern minimalist school of Israel Finkelstein (The Bible Unearthed) and the Copenhagen group believes that the Biblical account is entirely fictional. There was no United Kingdom under David and Solomon during that time; Jews first became a real presence much later.

Tortured women in the Bible, tortured readings of the Bible text, my my.

I was asked a question about Hagar a few weeks ago, and since Hagar is first mentioned in this week’s parsha — Lech Lecha — this is an appropriate time to post the question and how I responded. Question and answer follow:

Question: I am currently a student studying at the University level “Women in Religion”. Being of Jewish background I found myself face to face being told a lot about a religion I know very little about. We are studying “texts of terror” which outlines women who were mistreated in the Torah.

4 females we came across were Hagar, Tamar, Levite’s Concubine, and Jepthah’s daughter. I would like to know– if Judaism is one of the most “accepting” and “pro female/equality” religion why there are stories about women being brutally raped, or thrown to be ‘known’ as is said in the Torah as sacrifices by fathers, and spouses.

(In line with the suggestion made by one of its readers, I am posting the following from the RJJ Newsletter just out. )

There is at long last heightened awareness of the tuition crises confronting a great and growing number of religious families. After years of silence about the subject, despite powerful evidence that constantly rising tuition begets enormous pain, there is talk that something needs to be done. This is good news, yet before we start celebrating we need to recognize that we are far from being out of the woods, that any effort to provide meaningful relief to families that deserve relief faces long odds.

I have raised the tuition issue for nearly the entirety of my one-third of a century as RJJ’s president. As much as I may want to think or claim otherwise, my advocacy has essentially failed. Torah Umesorah – the National Society of Hebrew Day Schools has been extremely negligent in this area and its once glorious record has been tarnished. Roshei Yeshiva have been occupied with other causes and other issues. Over the years I have been a lone voice protesting against the wrongness of an attitude that makes yeshiva education into a consumer product and the wrongness of an attitude that results in stress and pain in some of the best families that we have.

As this newsletter is being written, I am at the halfway point in a campaign, expressed through a series of full-page messages that are appearing in the Jewish Press that aim to challenge the prevailing notion that basic Torah education is not a communal responsibility. It is telling that Hamodia and Yated Ne’eman, the English-language weeklies that serve the yeshiva world and certain chasidic sectors, turned down these messages because they did not want to go into controversial territory. What we need, in fact, is more discussion and debate and not only about tuition but about a wide range of issues affecting American Orthodoxy.

The first thing that struck me on my first visit to the new exhibition hall at Yad Vashem, Israel’s major Holocaust museum, was the group of older people in front of me entering the hall. The men were all wearing the kind of smooth white yarmulkes that one picks out of a box at Reform temples or Jewish funeral homes. Clearly these were not regular yarmulke-wearers, and I wondered why they felt that doing so was appropriate for Yad Vashem.

It occurred to me that the wearing of the yarmulkes was not without its symbolism: To a large extent, Holocaust Remembrance has become the religion of American Jewry. Between 75% and 85% of American Jews rate
the Holocaust as a very important factor in their sense of themselves as
Jews, far higher than belief in God, Torah or Israel.

The yarmulkes on their heads also hinted to another tragedy. The most frequent “life-cycle event” at which these elderly Jews find themselves — if, in fact, they were Jewish, and not Christian tourists, who think of Yad Vashem as some sort of Jewish holy site — are funerals. For too many American Jews, Yiddishkeit is primarily associated with death and dying, and to the extent that their Jewish identity centers on the mass slaughter of Jews during the Holocaust the association is only heightened. Jewish simchas and Yiddishe nachas are almost entirely absent from their lives. No wonder they have been unable to provide their children any little reason to affiliate with the Jewish community. Who wants to be just another link in a chain of death and persecution?

Rabbi Moshe Matz sent the following letter:

Dear Friends,

This year we saw powerful storms that wrought havoc across the country. Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and then Hurricane Rita followed, once again sending people into flights for their lives.

And then came Hurricane Wilma, which beat down on South Florida on Hoshana Raba and tore through our communities, leaving much destruction in its trail.

Rabbi Aharon Kotler once told his friend Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak Ruderman, Rosh Yeshiva of Ner Israel Rabbinical College, “I only envy you one thing: Rabbi Neuberger.” Reb Aharon was referring to Rabbi Naftoli Neuberger, Ner Israel’s long-time president.

Reb Aharon’s envy is easily understood. Ner Israel’s 90-acre campus is the largest in the world, and serves nearly 1,000 students in the high school, beis medrash and kollel. The campus boasts over hundred housing units for the faculty, administrators, and kollel families. There is no parallel anywhere in the world. After a visit to the campus a few years ago, MK Yuval Steinitz told me that it reminded him of a yeshiva kibbutz.

All this was the result of Rabbi Neuberger’s breadth of vision.

Running and raising the funds for such a large institution, with an annual budget of nearly $10 million dollars, would have been a full-time job for any man. But Rabbi Neuberger’s impact extended far beyond the Ner Israel campus.