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Rav Chesed
The Life and Times of Rabbi Haskel LooksteinBy Rafael MedoffKTAV Publishing House, Inc.
Copyright © 2008 Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-60280-043-4Contents
Acknowledgments..............................ixIntroduction.................................xiI. The Student............................1II. The Rabbi..............................14III. Husband & Father.......................34IV. The Scholar............................39V. On His Own.............................46VI. The Activist...........................55VII. Women's Issues.........................103VIII. The Zionist............................116IX. Centrist Orthodoxy.....................130X. The Teacher............................145Conclusion...................................156
Chapter One
THE STUDENT * * *
On a crisp Monday morning in early September 1937, Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein led his five year old son, Haskel, into a classroom in the fledgling Ramaz elementary school on East 85th Street, next door to its sponsor, Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun. The inauguration of the school launched a major new attempt to combine Orthodoxy and modernity in a Manhattan neighborhood that few considered fertile ground for Jewish religious observance. The experiment would ultimately succeed far beyond its sponsors' expectations. Under the leadership of Rabbi Lookstein, and later of his son, Ramaz would come to be recognized as one of the most influential Jewish day schools in the United States, Kehilath Jeshurun would emerge as one of America's most important synagogues, and the Upper East Side would blossom into a thriving center of Jewish life. Nurturing a local community while at the same time influencing the entire American Jewish community, the Looksteins would make their mark with an innovative blend of traditional observance, respect for modernity, social activism, tolerance, and personal compassion.
* * *
Joseph H. Lookstein first came to Kehilath Jeshurun in 1923, as assistant rabbi under the renowned sage Rabbi Moses Margolies, better known by the acronym RaMaZ. Three years later he married Margolies's granddaughter, Gertrude Schlang, and when their daughter Nathalie reached the age of five, in 1932, he began exploring the possibility of establishing a day school on the Upper East Side. The 1930s were hardly an auspicious time to establish a new Jewish school, especially in an area with a small Jewish presence such as the Yorkville section of Upper Manhattan, where Kehilath Jeshurun was situated. The Great Depression drastically reduced the pool of potential donors, and the neighborhood was best known for pro-Nazi rallies by the German-American Bund. By 1937, when Rabbi Lookstein's son Haskel turned five and was ready to enter first grade, the rabbi was determined to launch a Jewish elementary school, regardless of these obstacles.
The neighborhood and the national economy were not the only hindrances to his plan. It was also a period of intense turmoil for American Judaism. Many Jewish immigrants chose to leave behind their old-world religious observances and assimilate into American society. Only a small minority clung to the traditional lifestyle they had known in Europe. Rabbi Lookstein was among those who sought a middle ground between these two extremes, as he worked to build a community that would remain loyal to tradition while at the same time embracing the best of modern American life.
At a meeting of the KJ board of trustees in 1937, he presented his vision of an institution that would integrate Judaic learning with secular studies, embodying the spirit of the modern, Americanized Orthodoxy to which they subscribed. Such a school was "an imperative necessity for an entire generation of growing young people," he argued. Most of the approximately fifteen Orthodox day schools in New York City were widely perceived as "ghetto schools." They were situated "in underprivileged neighborhoods and were considered as suited for poor underprivileged children." The children of more successful, native-born American Orthodox Jews did not regard such schools as "congenial or acceptable." Judaic studies were taught in Yiddish, by teachers who did not understand "the modern American Jewish children," while secular studies were relegated to the end of the ten-hour school day, when "tired teachers were expected to teach tired children."
The school Rabbi Lookstein proposed to build would be unique in two important respects. First, it would bring to the Upper East Side a type of day school unknown to that area and barely represented elsewhere in New York City: a modern Orthodox alternative to, on the one hand, a traditional cheder that would leave their children ill equipped to succeed in the outside world, and, on the other hand, a public school that would leave the youngsters bereft of Jewish knowledge. Ramaz would offer the best of both worlds. Second, it would consciously seek to recruit students from less religiously observant families. Doing this was a virtual necessity given the small size of the neighborhood's Orthodox community, but it also created an unusual opportunity to influence Jewish families to become more observant.
R. Joseph's proposal met with some skepticism among KJ board members. Some regarded day schools as "too parochial," preferring that Jewish children be sent to public schools and receive a limited supplementary Judaic education. Others doubted that the synagogue could shoulder the financial burden of a new school, which would inevitably run a deficit at least in its early years.
Rabbi Lookstein would not yield. He informed the board that if Kehilath Jeshurun were unwilling to take on the project, he would resign and find another synagogue that would implement his vision. The stalemate was resolved when Max J. Etra, a prominent attorney and lay leader in the congregation, pledged to cover the first year's deficit, which the rabbi estimated would be $5,000.
Lookstein named the school after Rabbi Margolies, a renowned scholar from Vilna whose intellectual feats included studying the complete Talmud each year. Significantly, the RaMaZ was also known for his substantial involvement in community affairs. A famous photograph shows Rabbi Margolies participating in the founding meeting of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the overseas relief agency run primarily by non-Orthodox Jews. His willingness to work side by side with Jews of other backgrounds and differing levels of religious observance was emblematic of a spirit of tolerance for which his grandson and great-grandson would become well known.
In 1932, shortly after his son was born, Rabbi Joseph Lookstein visited the RaMaZ to receive a blessing. As the story goes, Rabbi Margolies had just read about the passing of Rabbi Hatzkel [Yehezkel] Kalischer, a distinguished scholar with whom RaMaZ had been close. He suggested to Rabbi Lookstein that the baby be named Hatzkel, "so he will grow up to be like Reb Hatzkel." Lookstein was pleased with the idea, regarding it as a harbinger of success for his son, but he worried that his wife and mother would be less than thrilled "about naming him after some Polish rabbi" instead of a relative. They conspired to present the name as connected to RaMaZ's father and uncle, both of whom were named Yechezkel. Gertrude Lookstein accepted the proposal but planned to also give him Charles as his English name, to which...
