Rephoel Baruch Sorotzkin | |
|---|---|
 Speaking for Agudath Israel of America | |
| Personal | |
| Born | February 5, 1917 |
| Died | February 10, 1979 (aged 62) |
| Religion | Judaism |
| Nationality | Lithuanian & American |
| Spouse | Rachel Bloch |
| Children | Yitzchok Sorotzkin Binyomin Sorotzkin Eliyahu Meir Sorotzkin Rassia Busel Chenia Schulman Shoshana Herzka Chassie Brog |
| Parent(s) | Zalman Sorotzkin and Miriam Gordon |
| Denomination | Haredi Orthodox Judaism |
| Jewish leader | |
| Predecessor | Chaim Mordechai Katz |
| Successor | Mordechai Gifter |
| Position | Rosh Yeshiva |
| Yeshiva | Telz Yeshiva |
| Began | 1964 |
| Ended | February 10, 1979 |
| Buried | Har HaMenuchot |
Rephoel Baruch[1] Sorotzkin[2] (February 5, 1917 - February 10, 1979) was the Rosh Yeshiva of the Telz Yeshiva in Cleveland and among American Jewry's foremost religious leaders.
He was born on February 5, 1917 (13th of Shevat, 5677) in Zhetl, in the Grodno Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus). His father, Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin was the town's rabbi. As a young man, Sorotzkin studied under Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman in the Baranovich Yeshiva, and then under Rabbi Baruch Ber Lebovitz in Kamenitz.
In 1940, Rabbi Boruch Sorotzkin married Rochel Bloch, daughter of the Telzer Rav and Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Bloch.
Sorotzkin was involved in the "tension" over visas needed to flee: the two factions were "those from Lithuanian versus Polish Yeshivot;"[3] control of the Kobe committee was by "students from the Polish yeshivot."[4] The rabbi and his wife fled Europe at the start of World War II, via Shanghai, and made their way to the United States. There, they joined his wife's uncles (and his own cousins) Rabbi Eliyahu Meir Bloch and Rabbi Chaim Mordechai Katz who had re-established the Telz Yeshiva in Cleveland, Ohio.
- ^ Anglicized Boruch by Jewish Telegraphic Agency/JTA
- ^ "Rabbi Boruch Sorotzkin Dead at 61". JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency. February 12, 1979.
- ^ Efraim Zuroff (1999). The Response of Orthodox Jewry in the United States to the Holocaust: The Activities of the Vaad Ha-Hatzala Rescue Committee, 1939-1945. KTAV Publishing. ISBN 978-0-88125-666-6.
- ^ Silberklang, David (1979). Yad VaShem studies (Volume 13). p. 344. ISBN 978-1571818485.