Veteran askanim Rabbi Shia Markowitz and Rabbi Shmuel Bloom join forces for shemittah

Photos: Naftoli Goldgrab

Before Shia Markowitz, a decades-long communal activist whose stamp is on some of the most important communal initiatives in recent years, took over the international shemittah umbrella, he admits that he didn’t have much emotional connection to Eretz Yisrael. Today, joining forces with former Agudah executive Rabbi Shmuel Bloom, the two American askanim are working tirelessly so that the Holy Land can have its rest

Reb Shia Markowitz might just be the most famous askan you never heard of.

Although he’s managed to stay well below the radar, the Monsey resident’s fingerprints are on some of the frum community’s most important initiatives, from decades ago through the present.  Reb Shia’s first claim to fame came early on, as a celebrated summertime hoopster, a magician on the courts who helped bring many a victory to Camp Torah Vodaath (CTV) in the frum sleepaway camp basketball leagues of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

A Boro Park native and Yeshiva Torah Vodaath alumnus, Shia was a learning rebbi in CTV for several years, and the summer after what he thought would be his final year there, the camp asked him to return in the middle of camp season to take over for the mashgiach of Torah Vodaath, Rav Moshe Wolfson. Rav Wolfson gave shiur to the oldest campers but had developed laryngitis.

“I was all of 21 at the time,” he recalls, “and I said, ‘Take over for the Mashgiach? Are you kidding me?’ They said, ‘Shia, due to your basketball fame there’s no one the campers respect more than you. No matter who else we give them, these kids are not going to learn. You can get them into it.’ So I spent a few weeks giving the shiur, and when it was over the kids got together and bought me a watch.”

A common “urban legend” in yeshivos is that of the rebbi whose sports talent almost got him drafted to play pro ball, but in Shia Markowitz’s case, it’s true. “At the schoolyard on 18th Avenue and 56th Street, I used to play pickup games against guys who were on the Rutgers University basketball team, and eventually they schlepped a coach down there, telling him, ‘You gotta see this Jewish guy play.’ He came down and after watching me for a while, on the spot he offered me a scholarship to Rutgers. I asked him, ‘When does the team play?’ ‘Saturdays.’ Pointing to my yarmulke, I said, ‘This doesn’t play on Saturday,’ and that was that.”

Shia’s mother had been ill for nearly two decades, and not wanting to further burden his family’s already stretched budget, he went into business while still in his early twenties, starting a printing/graphics art and marketing firm.  Soon afterward, he partnered with Nuta Goldbrenner, an old friend from his CTV days. The two were partners for 43 years, until the business was sold in 2017.

Up, Down, Up 

His formal introduction to klal endeavors came in the early 1980s, when an emissary of Rav Avrohom Yehoshua Heschel Bick asked him to attend a meeting convened by Satmar’s Rav Tov organization regarding the then-dire situation of Iranian Jews. “I left the meeting feeling that something far more needed to be done,” says Reb Shia, “and being more aligned with the Agudah, I called Rabbi Moshe Sherer and said, ‘I know Rabbi Neuberger is doing things with Iranians in Baltimore but this sounds pretty urgent.’ He told me he’d check on the matter and get back to me.

“Two months later, I received a call informing me that the Iranian Rescue Committee was being formed. It was chaired by Rabbi Mechel Gruss, with Shloimy Berger, Dr. Moshe Ruzhorsky, Dovid Weldler and me as its core members. Over the course of eight years, we raised eight million dollars to smuggle kids out of Iran who would otherwise have been used as cannon fodder in the killing fields of the then-raging Iran-Iraq War.

“We sent many young couples as teachers to Vienna, where the refugee children awaited admittance to their country of destination, rented a refurbished apartment building to house the girls, and developed various activities to keep them entertained and educated for the many months of their stay. We helped bring many of these children to this country, placing them in frum homes and schools and eventually helping them find jobs.

“For at least five of those years, the work was very intense, all-consuming. We worked nonstop, and we succeeded in saving thousands of lives and helping to establish thousands of wonderful Jewish families. Of anything I’ve ever been involved in, I’d have to say this is the thing I’m the most fortunate to have been part of. It was a great group of guys, and the bonds of affection we developed back then haven’t waned.”

Reb Shia is candid about the tradeoffs that a life of askanus can entail. “We all had families with small kids, and I have to say there was a heavy price to pay in terms of family life. Our wives paid a price and our children paid a price. Remember, I was running a business full-time at the same time that I was devoting scores of hours a week to this project, and so I was up until all hours of the night. There were no weekends and vacation days off.”