By D. Sofer
This article originally appeared in Yated Neeman, Monsey NY. and is reprinted here with their permission
During the second half of the 19th century, huge numbers of Jews fled Czarist Russia for America, believing that they would prosper in the "Goldene Medina." Many settled in New York, and it didn't take them long to come to the realization that America was far from the land of their dreams - and that if they didn't take swift action, American Jewry would soon face spiritual destruction.
Leaders of America's Torah communities soon formulated a plan that they believed would help save American Jewry. They sought to import the European system of Torah life to American shores.
In Europe, the Jewish communities were well organized, especially when it came to their religious needs. Every European community had a chief rabbi, who supervised a network of shochtim, dayanim, and maggidim. Unfortunately, the same could not be said of New York's Jewish communities, where religious life was in disarray, with growing numbers of Jewish youth distancing themselves from their heritage.
In 1879, representatives of 32 Jewish congregations met to discuss the idea of bringing a learned rav from Europe to New York to serve as its chief rabbi. At the meeting they decided to appoint such a rabbi, as well as a beis din to assist him. The rav's salary would be drawn from a tax the Jewish community would levy on kosher meat. At the same time, an organization called the Board of Delegates of the United Hebrew Orthodox Congregations was established.
The group's plan, however, had many shortcomings, but the leaders were unaware of them because of their inexperience with such matters. They did not realize that it would be very difficult for a chief rabbi in New York to exert his authority and to maintain discipline among his constituents. At first, the board decided to offer the position of chief rabbi of New York to the famed Malbim, Rav Meir Leibush. All that was needed was to raise $5,000 to cover his salary. He was to be charged with curtailing chillul Shabbos, which was becoming increasingly common among new immigrants; assume control of and centralize kashrus operations; and influence the younger generation to return to mitzva observance.
The Malbim, however, passed away before he could assume the position. The United Hebrew Orthodox Congregations then decided to expand their search for a chief rabbi. They placed ads in Russian Jewish newspapers stating that an opening was available for the position of chief rabbi of New York. The organization, which was controlled by wealthy businessmen, eventually offered the position to Rav Yaakov Yosef.
ARRIVAL ON AMERICAN SHORES
Rav Yaakov Yosef was a native of Kovno who had studied in Volozhin, where he was known as Rav Yaakov Charif because of his sharp mind. He had served as rav in a number of Russian Jewish communities, and at the time of his appointment, he was serving as the dayan of Vilna, where he also performed various rabbinical functions and delivered powerful drashos.
Rav Yaakov was very reluctant to move to the United States, but in the end he accepted the position because his family was in dire financial straits. Rav Yaakov arrived in America in on July 7, 1888. His ship landed in Hoboken, N.J., where he was greeted by a large crowd. He was escorted from Hoboken to the home designated for him on Henry Street on the Lower East Side.
He delivered his first drasha on Shabbos Nachamu. Hundreds of people came to the shul to catch a glimpse of the new rav. The crowd soon grew so large that police were called in to maintain order.
Rav Yaakov's drasha focused mainly on quotes from that week's haftara, but he also alluded to the situation of American Jewry. In the course of the drasha, he didn't call on his congregation to wage war against those who had abandoned religion; rather, he aroused its members to reach out to their fellow Jews and to inspire them to do teshuva.
Rav Yaakov gained fame shortly afterward as a concerned and sensitive leader when a fire broke out in the "Bowery," a district in New York where many Jews lived. The fire claimed many lives, and Rav Yaakov successfully raised the spirits of the injured and the victims' families by visiting them. He also issued an urgent call for New York Jewry to come to their aid.
In addition, Rav Yaakov was instrumental in securing releases for Jewish prisoners who were forced to work on the Yomim Tovim. It appeared that a bright future awaited New York's new chief rabbi.
THE KASHRUS CONFLICT
This bright future, however, never materialized.
Not long after Rav Yaakov arrived in the United States, the Anglo-Saxon Jewish press, which was controlled by anti-religious groups, began to attack him.
Rav Yaakov wasn't fazed by his opponents or the slanderous reports they published about him. He instead directed his energies toward fulfilling his responsibilities as chief rabbi.
His first goal was to improve the sorry situation in New York's kosher slaughterhouses. Many of these slaughterhouses employed shochtim whose yiras Shamayim was dubious, to say the least. Many also lacked rabbinical supervision, meaning the shochtim were at the mercy of the slaughterhouse owners, most of whom did not allow them to examine the lungs of the cattle, although this procedure is required by halacha.
Rav Yaakov rectified this situation by testing all of the shochtim. He dismissed the unqualified ones and replaced them with qualified shochtim who had recently arrived from Europe. He also hired more than 40 additional shochtim, and he demanded that all animals' lungs be examined visually and that lead seals be attached to all kosher carcasses to avoid confusion between kosher and non-kosher ones. He then appointed two rabbis as mashgichim, who were charged with visiting all of the slaughterhouses and examining the shochtim's knives on an ongoing basis.
Rav Yaakov also brought an end to the chaos that prevailed in the kosher chicken markets. This was a monumental undertaking, since much corruption existed among the butchers and the slaughterhouse owners. Rav Avraham Yosef Ash, who had led the Lower East Side Jewish community beforehand, had suffered greatly from the butchers, who disobeyed him and even attacked him physically.
Needless to say, the shochtim and butchers were angry with Rav Yaakov for interfering in the kashrus system. They were soon joined by East Side residents, who were angry that they had been asked to pay a token kashrus tax in order to subsidize the salaries of the new mashgichim. This was despite the fact that this tax consisted of no more than a penny per chicken slaughtered, and it was also intended to help cover the salaries of the shochtim.
At the same time, the local rabbanim also began to feel that Rav Yaakov was infringing on their rights, because they were losing income from the private hashgachos they ran that were not under his jurisdiction. They decided to form a new beis din of their own, and soon the butchers and shochtim also formed a new association and announced that they would only accept this new beis din's hashgacha.
The new butcher's association also launched a sharp verbal campaign against Rav Yaakov, and stopped at nothing to discredit him.
Once again, Rav Yaakov was not fazed and he responded by garnering the support of two prominent New York rabbanim, Rabbi Bernard Drachman and Rabbi Henry P. Mendes. Thanks to the rabbanim's intervention, the butchers made peace with Rav Yaakov and dissolved their new organization.
Throughout the period during which the butchers fought Rav Yaakov and maligned him, Rav Yaakov maintained his dignity, responding to his opponents with understanding and forgiveness.
In a letter regarding amendments on the shechita issue, he wrote: "We must relate, nonetheless, to our opponents with consideration and compassion. For them, it is a matter of parnasa. I ask you, then, not to disrupt their daily affairs. Believe me, I don't bear any grudges against them even though they defame me in public."
Even when certain people falsely accused Rav Yaakov of taking money dishonestly, he refused to retort or react to their charges. He refused to speak in public - and even in private - against those who offended him, and even forbade his supporters to call the meat that wasn't slaughtered under his supervision "treif," even though its kashrus was questionable.
MORE ATTACKS
Unfortunately, the slaughterhouse controversy wasn't the only one that confronted Rav Yaakov; he had to contend with several forces of opposition. There were anti-religious groups that organized public demonstrations of chillul Shabbos in the Lower East Side to protest and denigrate Rav Yaakov's authority. This group hired wagons to transport groups of cigarette-smoking youths through the streets of the Lower East Side on Shabbos. The boys stopped at many of the shuls and threw rocks and sticks at the buildings and congregants.
Things reached a crescendo one Yom Kippur, when the anti-religious Chalutz Hacheirut youth organization held a party on Kol Nidrei night. As their parents walked to shul, these youngsters held a raucous party.
Rav Yaakov also faced opposition when he tried to institute a hashgacha on matza meal for Pesach. The cost of hashgacha was supposed to amount to less than a quarter of a cent per pound of matza meal.
Nonetheless, the anti-religious press made a major issue over this, inciting those who sought to curtail the activities of the chief rabbi of New York.
AS CHIEF RABBI
Although these conflicts took up a good portion of Rav Yaakov's time, he did not neglect his other duties as New York's chief rabbi, and continued to deliver rousing drashos in shul.
He also made efforts to improve the educational institutions in the Lower East Side. In particular, he helped strengthen the Etz Chaim Yeshiva, which had been established there in 1866. This was the first yeshiva founded in America. It began as elementary school and expanded to include a high school. Rav Yaakov regularly visited the school and tested its older students. He also assisted immigrant talmidei chachamim, granting them semicha and helping them find rabbinical positions.
In addition, Rav Yaakov undertook to rectify the problem of mixed seating at Orthodox events. Although no Orthodox synagogue under his jurisdiction had mixed seating in the shul itself, at weddings they permitted mixed seating. As a result, Rav Yaakov instituted an amendment demanding that there be separate seating at weddings in those shuls.
CHIEF RABBI IN NAME ONLY
Although Rav Yaakov stood firm in his beliefs and never bowed to outside pressures, things finally came to a head in 1892. At that time, many members of the Galician and Hungarian communities in New York became unwilling to submit themselves to Rav Yaakov's authority. He was a native of Lithuania, and the organization he represented - The United Hebrew Orthodox Congregations - was also run by Lithuanian Jews.
These communities decided to bring in a chief rabbi of their own, and soon the divisive New York community became more fractured than ever. Rav Yaakov began to steadily lose the limited authority he had, and The United Hebrew Orthodox Congregations started to disintegrate.
At the same time, the kosher meat controversy - which had never really been completely settled - once again reared its ugly head. At first, an agreement was made under which the butchers agreed to pay Rav Yaakov's salary in exchange or his supervision of their work. Before long, however, the butchers reneged on their side of the agreement.
The local congregations also refused to accept the burden of paying Rav Yaakov's salary. Some of the shuls began to skip their payments, and the wealthy members of the community were tired of covering the ever-increasing deficit in the budget.
Although Rav Yaakov still retained the title of chief rabbi, his title eventually grew meaningless. And the United Hebrew Orthodox Congregation soon existed only on paper.
Ironically, while still serving as chief rabbi of New York, Rav Yaakov was forced to work as a simple mashgiach for the city's butchers. Divested of his honor and the object of scorn and mockery, he barely earned his living during that period.
But even under these circumstances, Rav Yaakov continued to maintain his dignity and to aid his community. A small group of followers still sought his advice and approached him for haskamos for their seforim.
Amazingly, all of the attempts to break him didn't not influence his spirit. But, eventually, they did influence his health. He suffered a stroke, which left him ill for the remainder of his life. The community that had welcomed him so enthusiastically totally abandoned him and chose to forget all of his efforts on its behalf.
WHAT BROKE RAV YAAKOV
For the next several years Rav Yaakov could not speak as a result of his stroke. Eventually, however, he regained his ability to speak. Wanting to express his gratitude to Hashem, he asked to deliver a drasha in shul on Shabbos Shuva.
That Shabbos, the large beis medrash on Norfolk Street filled to capacity, and the police were called in to maintain order.
Slowly, Rav Yosef approached the bima and began, "Shteit in Rambam..." "It says in the Rambam..." Then he fell silent. Everyone waited for him to continue, but he said nothing. A short while later he burst into uncontrollable tears.
Then he cried, "Do you know what it means to forget a Rambam?" Unable to recall the quote on which he wished to base his drasha, the man who had once been the illui of Volozhin stepped down from the bima and walked home.
This event had a tremendous impact on the community. The message Rav Yaakov had sought to convey his entire life finally reached his fellow Jews. They saw that nothing broke his spirits - not failures, slander or even illness. The one and only thing that broke Rav Yaakov was his inability to recall a Rambam.
TRAGEDY EVEN IN DEATH
Rav Yaakov was niftar on the 23rd of Tammuz, 5664 (1902), at the age of 59. With his petira, the shuls that had rejected and abandoned him fought for the honor of burying him in their respective plots. Their considerations, however, were based on greed. They knew that the prices of the other plots in their possession would rise as a result.
Over 100,000 people accompanied the rav on his earthy journey. There were some who sincerely mourned his loss, but many likely came because they felt guilty for the way they had treated him.
Sadly, even his levaya did not proceed in peace. When the entourage passed the R. Hoe and Company factory, its non-Jewish workers threw refuse and rocks at the bier. Local police arrived at the scene, and a terrible fight, heavy with anti-Semitic overtones, ensued. More than 300 Jews had to be hospitalized as a result.
The bier eventually made its way to the cemetery, where the maspidim exhorted the participants for having mistreated Rav Yaakov during his life, and for not recognizing his true value and greatness.
Among these was Rav Moshe Zivitz, who cried: "Did you know him? Did you appreciate the greatness of the tzaddik who lived in your midst? When his income seriously decreased and you told him to take a smaller apartment, did you realize whom you were demeaning? When he had a stroke, did you stop to ask yourselves why it had occurred to him and whom you had so mistreated?" With Rav Yaakov's petira, a sad period in the annals of New York's Jewish history finally came to a close.
His legacy lives on thru his seforim and the Rabbi Jacob Joseph Schools founded in 1899 and named for him the night of his petirah. Eleven hundred students are enrolled in its four schools, including the Yeshiva Gedola in Edison, NJ and three schools in Staten Island. NY.
T.N.Z.B.H.