With Rabbi Joey Haber's unique blend of Sephardi mesorah and a yeshivish education, he gracefully straddles different demographics while promoting life-enhancing messages common to us all

Photos: Jeff Zorabedian, Itzik Roytman

From advice on chinuch banim to shalom bayis to family finances, Rabbi Joey Haber has emerged as a popular address for the conflicts and conundrums many people face in an ever-challenging and confusing world. With Rabbi Joey’s unique blend of Sephardi mesorah and a yeshivish education, he gracefully straddles different demographics while promoting life-enhancing messages common to us all.

The most popular speaker at TAG’s Nekadesh event last June at the Prudential Center in Newark wasn’t a venerable Ashkenazic rav with a long beard. Instead, people in the audience found themselves riveted by a dynamic young Sephardi rav from Brooklyn. It wasn’t long before his speech about the dangers of technology had, ironically, gone viral.

Rabbi Haber was already a highly sought-after lecturer in the Syrian community, both in the US and abroad. But the asifah changed the game completely. Now he finds himself asked to speak to Jewish communities across the spectrum, not just about tech, but issues like chinuch, shalom bayis, shidduchim, and the challenges of a society focused on materialism. Personable, articulate, and impassioned, he has his finger squarely on the pulse of both the yeshivah community and his own Syrian kehillah.

“I’m very yeshivish, and I’m very Syrian,” he says when we meet at his Brooklyn home.

Currently the rav of the Magen David shul in Flatbush and the Beit Yosef shul in Deal during the summers, Rabbi Haber has been immersed in both Torah and the Syrian community since earliest childhood. Rabbi Joey grew up in Deal with his eight siblings, and his father, Rabbi Michael Haber, a talmid chacham and the author of many seforim, served as the rav of shuls in Brooklyn and Deal.

“My father is an incredible masmid totally devoted to the community,” Rabbi Haber says. “He often didn’t leave the shul until 11p.m.”

Rabbinic training for all the Haber boys began during the two-mile treks from their home to shul every Shabbos. “Going twice to shul on Shabbos meant we walked eight miles with my father,” Rabbi Haber says. “During that time we discussed divrei Torah and community issues, and it was a great rabbinic education. But my father never pushed us to become rabbanim. He only wanted to make sure we became lamdanim.”

But the senior Rabbi Haber’s example must have spoken louder than the words he didn’t say. Every single one of his sons became distinguished rabbanim in the Syrian community, his daughters married rabbanim, and all are as deeply involved in their community as their parents are.

Their mother, Molly, is likewise a role model of devotion to Torah and community. “I’d say she’s one of the top influential women in the Syrian community,” Rabbi Joey Haber says. “She does all kinds of chasadim — she teaches kallahs starting at nine in the morning and doesn’t finish till seven at night, and in between she’s taking calls and texts from people seeking her help and advice.”

The Haber sons were sent to the Lakewood Cheder for elementary school, which at the time still occupied the Legion Building and had only two classes per grade. (The sons of Rav Yerucham Olshin and Rav Dovid Schustal were among Rabbi Haber’s classmates.) After elementary school, the young Joey was sent to learn with Rav Reuven Feinstein in Staten Island for mesivta and beis medrash, and spent seven years there before going to Eretz Yisrael to learn under Rav Dovid Soloveitchik.

He married Marlene, who comes from the prestigious Shalom family (she’s the great-niece of Mr. Isaac Shalom, a philanthropist known for his efforts in building the infrastructure of the Syrian community and helping Sephardic communities around the world, which included bringing Sephardic boys from the Middle East to the Mirrer Yeshiva to learn.) The couple lived in Eretz Yisrael for a year before moving to Lakewood, where Rabbi Haber learned in BMG for ten years.

“My wife doesn’t care about externals,” Rabbi Haber says. “She’s happier when I spend four hours learning than when I give a speech to a crowd of any size.” She’s in and out as we speak, a serene presence providing a calm foil to her husband’s ceaseless activity.

Rabbi Haber left Lakewood to accept a position as a Hebrew dean at Magen David Yeshivah high school in Brooklyn, a job he’d retain for the next 16 years. “That job was my PhD in the Syrian community,” he jokes. It gave him extensive experience in chinuch and community issues, with an up-front view of the concerns and mindset of young people. It also honed his skills as a speaker: He’d give a 25-minute lecture to the boys once a week, and in his words, the talk had to be “crazy interesting” to keep their attention.

Recently, Rabbi Haber moved on to serve as lead rabbi at Kesher, a Sephardic organization he founded ten years ago to keep post-high school graduates connected to Torah. Kesher, which today boasts over 100 staff members, runs shiurim, events, Shabbat dinner learning for boys, and has recently opened a new division for girls, and a seminary called Naaleh.

The demand for his services as a speaker keeps him very busy, especially since the Nekadesh event heightened his visibility. Once a week he gives a shiur to women from his father’s shul that’s then uploaded to iTorah and TorahAnytime. Every other Shabbos he switches off with the rav of Shaare Zion, Rabbi Meir Yedid, to speak in the afternoon in the main sanctuary to over 700 people.

“But it’s hard to set limits,” he admits. “I always have this sense that I have to do more, that there’s more to be done. There’s a kind of chain reaction: I talk about something I’ve been seeing, I answer questions, then I see what else is on their minds and give a different talk, and that leads to even more questions and more speeches.”

Rabbi Haber is on the frontlines, advising people how to deal with the challenges of 21st century frum life, and we wanted to benefit from that as well.  For our readers, Mishpacha presented him with some real-life scenarios, to offer readers a fly-on-the-wall view as he addresses contemporary issues with his unique perspective and incisive point of view.