Eliezer Silver
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Rav_Eliezer_Silver.jpg)
Rabbi Eliezer Silver (15 February 1882[1] - 7 February 1968[1][2]) was the President of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada and among American Jewry's foremost religious leaders. He helped save many thousands of Jews in the Second World War and held several Rabbinical positions in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Ohio.
Biography
Rabbi Silver was born in Obeliai, Lithuania, one of two sons of Rabbi Bunim Tzemach[3] (1844–1917) and Malka Silver. He had centuries-old rabbinic ancestry. He studied in Daugavpils, with Rabbi Yosef Rosen (the "Rogatchover Gaon") and received Semicha from Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski in 1906. He immigrated to the United States with his wife in 1907, to escape the anti-Semitism of Czarist Russia. They settled in New York City, where Rabbi Silver worked as a garment salesman and later sold insurance.[4]
However, Rabbi Silver soon accepted a Rabbinical position in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His Torah scholarship soon drew him into leading Orthodox circles on the national level. In 1912, he was part of a delegation of rabbis that asked President William Howard Taft to void a treaty with Russia because of Russia's persecution of Jews.[4]
Rabbi Silver was active in relief efforts in World War I. In 1925 he moved to Springfield, Massachusetts. Around 1931, he accepted an invitation to become Rabbi in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he remained until his death. While in Cincinnati, he caused much controversy when he established the Vaad Hoir of Cincinnati. The most prominent opponent of the Vaad was Rabbi Bezalel Epstein,[5] who "already had his own kashrut supervision and who viewed Rabbi Silver's activities as encroachment." [6]
Rabbi Silver was very active in the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada, elected its president in 1929. He was also a pivotal founder, organizer, and president of Agudath Israel of America.[4]
World War II rescue activities
Rabbi Silver convened an emergency meeting in November 1939 in New York City, where the Vaad Hatzalah (Rescue Committee), was formed, with Rabbi Silver as president. Rabbi Silver spearheaded its efforts in rescuing as many European Torah scholars as possible from Nazi Europe.
Rabbi Silver launched a fund-raising drive that raised more than $5 million, and also capitalised on an exemption to US immigration quotas allowing entry to ministers or religious students. At his direction, synagogues in Cincinnati and across the country sent contracts to rabbis, thereby securing 2,000 emergency visas that were telegraphed to Eastern Europe.
With the increasingly desperate race against time, the Vaad, under Rabbi Silver turned to all channels, whether legal or not,[4] to save as many lives as possible by bringing Jews to the US, Canada and Palestine.
During WWII, a Vaad representative in Switzerland even negotiated with the SS, offering to ransom concentration camp prisoners for cash and tractors - talks that freed hundreds from Bergen-Belsen and other death camps.
In October 1943, as the scale of Nazi atrocities was becoming clearer, Rabbi Silver helped organise and lead a mass rally of more than 400 rabbis in Washington, D.C. to press for more decisive action by the US government to save European Jews. The rabbis' march was organized by Hillel Kook's "Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe".[7]
Post-World War II
After the war, when the full extent of the Nazi atrocities came to light, Rabbi Silver began planning for reconstruction. In 1946, he distributed relief funds and helped expedite visas to Jews in eight European nations - wearing, with government permission, a US Army uniform for extra protection in areas where anti-Semitism was still rife. When donations were insufficient, Rabbi Silver often spent his own money to meet refugees' needs.
In the post-war years, when Rabbi Silver helped many Jews escape the Communist countries of Europe behind the Iron Curtain, he personally guaranteed countless loans - many of which he had to repay himself.
In 1949 he founded the Chofetz Chaim Day School (also known as the Cincinnati Hebrew Day School.) Rabbi Silver died in 1968, at the age of 85[1] or 86.[2] He was interred at Washington Cemetery (Knesseth Israel) in Cincinnati. He had been Rabbi of the Kneseth Israel Congregation in Cincinnati for nearly 40 years. In 2009, the congregation changed its name to Congregation Zichron Eliezer in honor of Rabbi Silver. He authored the Sefer titled Anfe Erez.[3]
References
- ^ a b c Social Security Death Index
- ^ a b "Rabbi Eliezer Silver". Toleado, Ohio: The Blade. 8 February 1968. p. 39. Retrieved 16 July 2009.
- ^ a b Silver, Eliezer (1960). Anfe Erez I. Brooklyn, New York: Balshon. OCLC 233183667. Retrieved 2009-07-16.
- ^ a b c d Horstman, Barry M (1999-11-05). "Eliezer Silver: Rabbi rescued thousands". The Cincinnati Post. E. W. Scripps Company. Archived from the original on 2005-12-03. Retrieved 2006-06-06.
{{cite news}}
: More than one of|author=
and|last=
specified (help) - ^ "Rabbi Eliezer Silver". American Jewish Archives. 2005. Retrieved 2009-08-17.
- ^ Wertheimer, Jack. The American Synagogue: A Sanctuary Transformed, pg. 270
- ^ Dr. Rafael Medoff (2003). "The Day the Rabbis Marched on Washington". Retrieved 2006-07-06.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|month=
ignored (help)
External links
- He Saved Thousands, ou.org