Rabbi Dr. Isaac Lewin, (1906 - 1995) was a Professor Emeritus Of Jewish History at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Yeshiva University In New York. [1]
Rabbi Dr. Isaac Lewin, (1906 - 1995) was a Professor Emeritus Of Jewish History at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Yeshiva University In New York. [1]
Isaac Lewin, born in 1906, in Wieliczka, Poland was the son of Rabbi Aaron Lewin. He received rabbinic ordination in 1935, and a law degree in 1937, and served two terms on the City Council of Łódź. [2] He fled Poland just ahead of the Nazis in 1939 with his wife and young son Nathan, and arrived in the United States in 1941. He was part of the Vaad Ha-Hatzala working for the Rescuing Jews in Occupied Poland. After the war he went on a relief mission to help Holocaust survivors and displaced persons. Lewin was a key aide to the leaders of Agudath Yisrael, and became the spokesman for the Agudath Israel in the United Nations.
Lewin an architect of the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, which was Proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 36/55 of 25 November 1981. For this, he was awarded the United Nation's Medal of Peace. He was also awarded by the city of Warsaw with the Golden Badge of Merit in 1988, for promoting international relations and cooperation among peoples.
Rabbi Lewin was professor of Jewish history at the Yeshiva University. He taught at YU from 1944 until 1985. He was an author and editor of works in English, Hebrew, Yiddish, and he could converse comfortably in German and French. [3]
In 1983 he was involved in obtaining an agreement from the Polish Government to help restore the neglected Jewish cemeteries in Poland. [4] His Son Nathan Lewin is a prominent Washington attorney who has appeared before the Supreme Court in many Orthodox causes.
In the struggle against discrimination -1957-
Late Summer Fruit -1960-
War on War -1969-
The Jewish community in Poland -1985-
In defense of Human Rights -1992-
Towards international guarantees for Religious Liberty -1981-
Ten years of Hope -1971-
Religious Freedom -1946- By Isaac Lewin, Michael L. Munk, Jeremiah Joseph Berman
Unto the Mountains -1975-
Attempts at Rescuing European Jews with the Help of Polish Diplomatic Missions During World War II -1977-
Ten years of Hope: addresses before the United Nations -1971-
Religious Jewry and the United Nations -1953–
In defense of Shehitah -1958-
Shall the sword devour forever? -1974-
The Metabolic Effects of the Steroid Hormones -1950–
The Effect of Reward on the Experience of Pain -1965–
A comparative study of concept formation -1981– By Helen Strauss, Isaac Lewin
The Protection of Jewish Religious Rights by Royal Edicts in Ancient Poland -1943–
Review and Analysis of Proposals for Federal Humane Slaughtering Legislation -1957– By Leo Pfeffer, Isaac Lewin, Synagogue Council of America
Isaac Lewin; Nathan Michael Gelber (1990). A History of Polish Jewry during the revival of Poland. Shengold Publishers. ISBN 9780884001430.
This is a list of notable events in the development of Jewish history. All dates are given according to the Common Era, not the Hebrew calendar.
Agudath Israel of America is an American organization that represents Haredi Orthodox Jews. It is loosely affiliated with the international World Agudath Israel. Agudah seeks to meet the needs of the Haredi community, advocates for its religious and civil rights, and services its constituents through charitable, educational, and social service projects across North America.
Michael Dov Weissmandl was an Orthodox rabbi of the Oberlander Jews of present-day western Slovakia. Along with Gisi Fleischmann he was the leader of the Bratislava Working Group which attempted to save European Jews from deportation to Nazi death camps during the Holocaust and was the first person to urge Allied powers to bomb the railways leading to concentration camp gas chambers. Managing to escape from a sealed cattle car headed for Auschwitz in 1944, he later emigrated to America where he established a yeshiva and self-sustaining agricultural community in New York known as the Yeshiva Farm Settlement. Accusing the Zionist Jewish Agency of having frustrated his rescue efforts during the Holocaust, he became a staunch opponent of Zionism after the war. Weissmandl claimed to have discovered codes in the Biblical text.
Yisrael Meir ha-Kohen Kagan was an influential Lithuanian Jewish rabbi, Halakhist, posek, and ethicist whose works continue to be widely influential in Orthodox Jewish life. He was known popularly as the Chofetz Chaim, after his book on lashon hara, who was also well known for the Mishna Berurah, his book on ritual law.
Yehuda Meir Shapiro was a prominent Polish Hasidic rabbi and rosh yeshiva, also known as the Lubliner Rav. He is noted for his promotion of the Daf Yomi study program in 1923, and establishing the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva in 1930.
World Agudath Israel, usually known as the Aguda, was established in the early twentieth century as the political arm of Ashkenazi Torah Judaism. It succeeded Agudas Shlumei Emunei Yisroel in 1912. Its base of support was located in Eastern Europe before the Second World War but, due to the revival of the Hasidic movement, it included Orthodox Jews throughout Europe. Prior to World War II and the Holocaust, Agudath Israel operated a number of Jewish educational institutions throughout Europe. After the war, it has continued to operate such institutions in the United States as Agudath Israel of America, and in Israel. Agudath Israel is guided by its Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah in Israel and the USA.
Yeshiva Torah Vodaas is a yeshiva in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.
Samuel Wulfowicz Goldflam was a Polish-Jewish neurologist best known for his brilliant 1893 analysis of myasthenia gravis.
Torah Umesorah – National Society for Hebrew Day Schools is an Orthodox Jewish educational charity based in the United States that promotes Torah-based Jewish religious education in North America by supporting and developing a loosely affiliated network independent private Jewish day schools.
Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah is the supreme rabbinical policy-making council of the Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah movements in Israel; and of Agudath Israel of America in the United States. Members are usually prestigious Roshei Yeshiva or Hasidic rebbes, who are also usually regarded by many Haredi Jews to be the Gedolim ("great/est") sages of Torah Judaism. Before the Holocaust, it was the supreme authority for the World Agudath Israel in Europe.
Vaad Hatzalah was an organization to rescue Jews in Europe from the Holocaust, which was founded in November 1939 by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada.
David H. Kranzler was an American professor of library science at Queensborough Community College, New York, who specialized in the study of the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust.
Chaim Yisroel Eiss was an Agudath Israel activist and writer. He also was among the founders of the Agudath Israel in 1912. During the First World War, Rebbe Eiss set up an aid system that located refugees, found out what they most needed and raised the required funds. During World War II, he worked on behalf of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe and he was a member of the Ładoś Group also called as Ładoś Group.
Yaakov Perlow was an American Hasidic rabbi and rosh yeshiva, and Rebbe of the Novominsk Hasidic dynasty. From 1998 until his death in 2020, he was president of Agudath Israel of America, a Haredi advocacy organization. He was also head of that organization's Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah. He was one of the most respected leaders of the American Orthodox Jewish community, known for his scholarly and oratorical skills.
Rb Dr Pinchas Kohn was the last rabbi of Ansbach, Germany. He was also the executive director of the World Agudath Israel organisation.
Alexander Zusia Friedman was a prominent Polish Orthodox Jewish rabbi, communal activist, educator, journalist, and Torah scholar. He was the founding editor of the first Agudath Israel Hebrew journal, Digleinu, and author of Ma'ayanah shel Torah, an anthology of commentaries on the weekly Torah portion, which is still popular today. He was incarcerated in the Warsaw Ghetto and deported to the Trawniki concentration camp, where he was selected for deportation to the death camps and murdered around November 1943.
Avraham Kalmanowitz was an Orthodox rabbi and rosh yeshiva (dean) of the Mir yeshiva in Brooklyn, New York from 1946 to 1964. Born in Russian empire, he served as rabbi of several Eastern European Jewish communities and escaped to the United States in 1940 following the German occupation of Poland. In the U.S. he was an activist for the rescue of the millions of Jews trapped in Nazi-ruled Europe and in the Soviet Union. He arranged the successful transfer of the entire Mir yeshiva from Lithuania to Shanghai, providing for its support for five years, and obtaining visas and travel fare to bring all 250 students and faculty to America after World War II. He established the U.S. branch of the Mir in 1946. In the 1950s he aided North African and Syrian Jewish youth suffering from persecution and pogroms, and successfully lobbied for the passage of a bill granting "endangered refugee status" to Jewish emigrants from Arab lands.
Yitzchak Zelig Morgenstern of Kotzk-Sokolov was an Admor and Rosh yeshiva, a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah and a leader of Polish Jewry before the Holocaust, who died shortly after the war began.
After the German invasion of Poland in World War II and the division of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union, many yeshivas that had previously been part of Poland found themselves under Soviet communist rule, which did not tolerate religious institutions. The yeshivas therefore escaped to Vilnius in Lithuania on the advice of Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski. In Lithuania, the yeshivas were able to function fully for over a year and many of the students survived the Holocaust because of their taking refuge there, either because they managed to escape from there or because they were ultimately deported to other areas of Russia that the Nazis did not reach. Many students, however, did not manage to escape and were killed by the Nazis or their Lithuanian collaborators.
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