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Solomon J. Sharfman | |
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| Born | November 1, 1915 |
| Died | December 4, 2004 (aged 89) |
| Resting place | Eretz HaChaim cemetery, Beit Shemesh, Israel |
| Other names | Rabbi Sharfman |
| Occupation | Rabbi |
| Employer | Young Israel of Flatbush |
| Spouse | Libby Ossip |
| Children | Label Sharfman Debbi Diament Rochelle Kohn Lea Hain Riki Koenigsberg |
| Parent(s) | Aharon Leib and Fruma Sharfman |
Solomon Sharfman was a rabbi of Orthodox Jewry who built the Flatbush Modern Orthodox Jewish community in the mid-1900s.
Solomon Joseph Sharfman was born on November 1, 1915, in Treblinka, Poland; his family came to the United States five years later. [1] His father, Rabbi Label Sharfman, worked as a shochet in Newark, New Jersey. He attended Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim and reportedly made up the name "The Rabbinical Seminary of America" when registering the new institution with the City of New York, because the city did not want to accept a Hebrew name.
For over forty years, from 1938 to 1984, Sharfman was the rabbi of Young Israel of Flatbush, [2] the pulpit from which he led American Jewry. [3] [4] For two years, from 1956 to 1958, he served as president of the Rabbinical Council of America, [5] [6] and from 1969 to 1971, he was president of the Synagogue Council of America. [7]
Rabbi Sharfman maintained a relationship with rabbinic luminaries of the era, such as Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik [8] and Rabbi Moshe Feinstein. [9]
His writings are included in a number of compilations of rabbinic literature ("Homer LeDerush") of the National Council of Young Israel. [10] He died in his sleep on December 19, 2004. [11]
Rabbi Sharfman was an early (1950s) opponent to New York's Sunday Blue laws. [1]
In 1989 he helped focus the attention of the National Council of Young Israel on JustOneLife, an organization [12] that provides professional counseling and financial assistance, enabling and empowering mothers to choose to continue their pregnancies to term. As of 2017 the organization is still in operation. [13]
He was survived by his wife and their sons and daughters, along with many grandchildren and greatgrandchildren. [1]
His son, Rabbi Label Sharfman, founded and heads the Bnot Torah Seminary in the Sanhedria Murchevet neighborhood in Jerusalem, Israel, otherwise known as "Sharfman's". [14] Notable grandchildren include Rabbi Eliakim Koenigsberg, Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshivat R' Yitzchak Elchanan (RIETS). [15] A sister of Rabbi Koenigsberg is married to Rabbi Meir Orlian, who is the rabbi and Dayan of a synagogue in Yad Binyamin and teaches in Yeshivat Shaalvim and Kerem BeYavneh. [16] Another sister, Dr. Chani (née Koenigsberg) Maybruch EdD, MA, is a relationship educator and coach along with her husband Rabbi Shmuel Maybruch. His youngest grandson is R' David Diament, honorary lecturer at The 2018 Dr. Abraham S. and Phyllis Weissman Memorial Rabbinic Lecture in RIETS. [17]
Modern Orthodox Judaism is a movement within Orthodox Judaism that attempts to synthesize Jewish values and the observance of Jewish law with the modern world.
Joseph Ber Soloveitchik was a major American Orthodox rabbi, Talmudist, and modern Jewish philosopher. He was a scion of the Lithuanian Jewish Soloveitchik rabbinic dynasty.
The Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) is one of the world's largest organizations of Orthodox rabbis; it is affiliated with The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, more commonly known as the Orthodox Union (OU). It is the main professional rabbinical association within Modern Orthodox in the United States. Most rabbis of the RCA belong to Modern Orthodox Judaism.
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The National Council of Young Israel (NCYI) or Young Israel, is a synagogue-based Orthodox Judaism organization in the United States with a network of affiliated "Young Israel" synagogues. Young Israel was founded in 1912, in its earliest form, by a group of 15 young Jews on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Their goal was to make Orthodox Judaism more relevant to young Americanized Jews at a time when a significant Jewish education was rare, and most Orthodox institutions were Yiddish-speaking and oriented to an older, European Jewish demographic.
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Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh is a youth village and major yeshiva in southern Israel. Located near the city of Ashdod and adjacent to Kvutzat Yavne, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hevel Yavne Regional Council. In 2021, it had a population of 538.
Rabbi Wolf Gold was a rabbi, Jewish activist, and one of the signers of the Israeli declaration of independence.
Congregation Beth Israel Abraham Voliner is an Orthodox Jewish congregation in Overland Park, in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. Formally established as Tefereth Israel in Kansas City, Missouri in 1894, by 1960 it had moved several times, and merged with three other congregations, taking on its current name. Responding to demographic shifts in Kansas City's Orthodox community, it opened a branch in Overland Park in 1987, and in 1994 it moved to its current location at 9900 Antioch Road.
Ahron Dovid Burack was a Lithuanian-American rabbi and rosh yeshivah.
Yeshiva University, a United States private university in New York City, with six campuses in New York and one in Israel, was founded in 1886. It is a research university ranked as 45th in the US among national universities by U.S. News & World Report in 2012.
Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff is an Israeli-American professor of rabbinic literature at Yeshiva University's Caroline & Joseph Gruss Institute in Jerusalem.
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.
David Hirsch is an American rabbi. He serves as rosh yeshiva at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University in New York City. He is the spiritual leader and rav of Kehillas Bais Yosef in Passaic, New Jersey.
Yeshivat Maharat is a Jewish educational institution in The Bronx, New York, which was the first Orthodox yeshiva in North America to ordain women. The word Maharat is a Hebrew acronym for phrase manhiga hilkhatit rukhanit Toranit, denoting a female "leader of Jewish law spirituality and Torah". Semikha is awarded to graduates after a 3- or 4-year-long program composed of intensive studies of Jewish law, Talmud, Torah, Jewish thought, leadership training, and pastoral counseling. The ordination functions as a credentialed pathway for women in the Jewish community to serve as clergy members.
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