This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 4, 2011 - When Rabbi Sholom Rivkin died on Saturday, an orthodox Jewish tradition in America died with him. He was the last chief rabbi in the nation. The position had made the St. Louis region special.
"There was pride in the fact that we had a chief rabbi," said Rabbi Yosef Landa, director of Chabad of St. Louis and chairman of the Rabbinical Council of St. Louis. "From the Jewish communal standpoint, he made us important and everyone feels the loss."
He was by far, said Landa, the greatest scholar in the Jewish community.
Rabbi Rivkin, chief rabbi emeritus of the Vaad Hoeir/United Orthodox Jewish Community, died Saturday at One McKnight Place, of complications from Parkinson's disease. He was 85.
Chief rabbis, the recognized religious leaders of a country or a city's Jewish community, are common in Israel and became prevalent in major centers of Jewish life in Europe before the Holocaust. But the institution barely took hold in the United States and only a handful of U.S. cities ever had one; St. Louis was the last.
Illness had forced Rabbi Rivkin's retirement as chief orthodox rabbi in 2005, a position he'd held for more than two decades. The position will not be replaced; and the man, say his friends and colleagues, cannot be replaced.
The Final Arbiter
"The St. Louis Jewish community and Jewish people have lost a treasure," Jewish Federation President and CEO Barry Rosenberg said in a prepared statement. "As a renowned Torah scholar and its chief rabbi, Rabbi Rivkin helped shape the growth and increasing vitality of the St. Louis Orthodox community."
Rabbi Rivkin led the Vaad Hoeir of St. Louis, a council that supervises all local kosher practices; orthodox Jewish educational organizations, including five schools; seven orthodox synagogues and religious divorce, for which Rabbi Rivkin was consulted worldwide.
The Vaad Hoeir (which literally means "council of the city or community") was founded in 1923.
It maintains a Rabbinical Court, of which Rabbi Rivkin was the "posek," the final arbiter of scholarly debate and all cases of Jewish law.
"He was a leader in the community," said Perry Mendelson, president of Vaad Hoeir, who took religious courses from Rabbi Rivkin, beginning more than 50 years ago. "He made the decisions in the religious community."
He presided over the addition of two Orthodox Jewish Day schools, the creation of an eruv, a place where certain activities forbidden to Orthodox Jews on the Sabbath are permitted, in Chesterfield and University City. He established a second mikvah, a place for a ritual purification bath, in the Young Israel Synagogue, which is available to the entire community.
Only two others held the position of chief rabbi prior to the appointment of Rabbi Rivkin in 1983.
His 22-year tenure was said to be marked by scholarship and caring.
"He was a very compassionate human being who had a good understanding and a good feel of other human beings regardless of religious affiliation," said Rabbi Yaakov Gertzulin, rabbi of the Cedars at the JCA and who served on the Rabbinical Court.
"He always resolved problems in a pleasant manner," Rabbi Gertzulin added. "He was a gentle man who always said, 'The right way is to go the sweet way.'"
Most Gifted
That Sholom Rivkin became a rabbi surprised few who knew the family. After all, he was the descendent of more than 40 generations of rabbis.
He was born June 6, 1926, at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, the second child of Russian Jews who had fled to Palestine as persecution of Jews intensified during the rise of Joseph Stalin. His father, Rabbi Moshe Dov Rivkin, was dean of a rabbinical school in Jerusalem; his mother, Nacha Rivkin, was a renowned educator and textbook author who pioneered Jewish day school education for girls.
Rabbi Rivkin was 3 years old in 1929 when Palestinian riots prompted his family to seek safety again, this time in New York. His father became dean of Torah Vodaath in Brooklyn, where Rabbi Rivkin studied and received his rabbinic ordination.
When he was ordained, Rabbi Moshe Binyomin Tomashoff called him "among the most gifted of his generation."
In 1947, at age 21, he became rosh yeshiva (dean) at Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin school in Brooklyn.
Two years later, Rabbi Rivkin came to St. Louis to serve as rabbi of Nusach Hari (prior to its merger with B'nai Zion). He also served as Jewish chaplain at the Veterans Administration Hospital at Jefferson Barracks.
While working in St. Louis, he took a trip to Buffalo, N.Y. There he went on a blind date with Paula Zuckerman, the only child of Rabbi Dov Berish Zuckerman and Hinda Zuckerman. Her family had escaped Austria after it came under the control of Nazi Germany. He and Paula, who became a clinical psychologist and enlisted her husband in helping abused women, were married in 1954.
In 1959, they left St. Louis when he became rabbi of Bikur Cholim Synagogue in Seattle, the largest synagogue in the Pacific Northwest. In 1970, the couple moved to Queens, N.Y., where Rabbi Rivkin served as rabbi of Young Israel Synagogue of Bayswater, N.Y. There he was also appointed one of three chief judges of the national Beth Din (Court of Jewish Law) of the Rabbinical Council of America, second in size only to the Beth Din of Tel Aviv.
Rabbi Rivkin was invited to return to St. Louis as chief rabbi of the United Orthodox Jewish Community-Vaad Hoeir, succeeding the late Rabbi Menachem Tzvi Eichenstein, who died in 1981. When he retired in 2005, he was named chief rabbi emeritus.
The position of chief rabbi was important, said Rabbi Menachem Greeblatt, because it provided the framework that created a central base -- a unified community -- that operated under one banner.
"We followed his direction," said Rabbi Greenblatt, rabbi at Agudath Israel Synagogue in University City. "Despite his towering intelligence, he had a warmth and softness and he loved people unconditionally."
But for Rabbi Rivkin, it was always a family affair.
"Rabbi Rivkin and his late rebbitzin (wife of a rabbi), Paula, reached out to touch and embrace the larger Jewish community, building bridges of understanding and cooperation that have enriched us all," Rosenberg said. "This gentle, humble man will be greatly missed."
In addition to his wife, who died last Jan. 7, Rabbi Rivkin was preceded in death by his parents.
His survivors include a daughter, Jacqueline Rivkin Rubin (the late Edward) of New York City; a son, Rabbi Ben Tzion Rivkin of St. Louis; two grandchildren, Nacha Rubin and Levi (Sarah) Rubin; two great-grandchildren, Bracha and Jacob Rivki, and his sister, Ella (Rabbi Aaron B.J.) Shurin of New York.
Funeral services were held Sunday at Young Israel in St. Louis. Rabbi Rivkin will be buried at the Mount of Olives Cemetery, next to his wife, in Jerusalem.
Some information for this story was provided by the St. Louis Jewish Light.
Gloria Ross is the head of Okara Communications and the storywriter for AfterWords, an obituary-writing and production service.