IHF Executive Director Rabbi Katz and his father Rabbi Chaim Mordechai Katz Slavita Rav are proud musmachim and students of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath
Today, Sunday 3 Elul, we mark 78 years since the passing of Harav Shraga Feivel ben R’ Moshe Mendlowitz zt”l.
He was born in 1886 in a small Hungarian village to simple, pious parents. But he had a big vision.
He learned in Chust, Unsdorf, and Pressburg. As a bochur he studied not only Gemara, but Tanya, Kuzari, Moreh Nevuchim, Nefesh HaChaim, and Rav Hirsch. Even then he was asking: “What will Torah in America look like?”
In 1921 he came to America and was asked to help lead Torah Vodaath in Williamsburg. America didn’t want yeshivos then. “One is enough. Send boys to college.”
Rabbi Mendlowitz disagreed. He set out to build something new — not a copy of Europe, but a synthesis.
So he built.
A Mesivta. A Beis Medrash. The first camp that combined learning and camping. And a national movement to put “a day school in every Jewish community.”
To make it happen, he sent leaders on the road every other Shabbos for 30 years. That devotion is why thousands of children learn in day schools today.
He took the best of all!
Brisker lomdus with the warmth of Chassidus.
Mussar, that learning needs character.
Torah im Derech Eretz, that a ben Torah lives with dignity. He even urged talmidim to learn German to read Rav Hirsch in the original.
Diligence in every mitzvah.
And deep ahavas Eretz Yisrael.
The opposition was strong. Parents said chinuch wasn’t a career. But he kept sending talmidim to cities with no Torah. Today those cities arei v’imahos b’Yisrael. He also raised funds for yeshivos here and for building Torah in Eretz Yisrael.
This is why I feel such proudness today. I am a musmach and student of Torah Vodaath. My father was a student too. We stand on the foundation he built.
Rabbi Mendlowitz was the architect of Torah in America. Almost every yeshiva and day school rests on his blueprint.
Because of him, we don’t just learn Torah. We build it and bring it to every community.
Yehi zichro baruch.