In Reb Yankel Rosenbaum's world, there weren’t neat boxes labeled mechanech or askan or mekarev — there was just one box: doing what Hashem wants

Photos: Monsey Connections, Sefer Zechor Zos Le’Yaakov

The year was 1960 and the place was Monsey, New York, a town with a small Jewish presence, and only one Jewish school. Rabbi Yaakov Rosenbaum, or Reb Yankel, as many knew him, was learning in the kollel of Bais Medrash Elyon, and driven by a desire to educate Jewish children, he went to teach at the school.

More than half a century later, former students would enthuse about his magnetism as a teacher and contagious reverence for Torah. But along with his warmth went a fire for higher Torah standards, which led to a clash that endangered the young man’s job.

The school was co-ed, and when a new, larger building was planned, the young teacher argued that now was the time to divide into two separate buildings. But that was a step too far for some of the parent body, who saw it as an unnecessary chumrah. So Rabbi Rosenbaum decided to enlist the support of the Satmar Rebbe, since some of the school’s donors were old-style followers.

The Rebbe’s’s reply to the young avreich was surprising: “They won’t listen to me, because they’ll say it’s a ‘Satmarer zach.’ But if Rav Moshe Feinstein rules in favor of the division, I’ll sign as well.”

Thus was born a one-of-a-kind teshuvah carrying the signature of two very different Torah giants, Rav Moshe Feinstein and the Satmar Rebbe, and brought about by Rabbi Yankel Rosenbaum, a clean-shaven but chassidic-souled avreich who spanned both worlds.

And that’s where Reb Yankel Rosenbaum’s lifelong career in building Klal Yisrael took off. Because that unusual blend of intuitive chinuch and uncompromising standards, self-confidence mixed with humility, was a hallmark of his life until his petirah on Tu B’Shevat last year.

Beginning with the Beis Rochel girls’ school that he founded in the wake of that episode and that now educates some 1,500 Monsey girls, he became a pioneer of the fledgling community. Alongside his successful career in real estate, in which he built many of the homes in Kaser Village in Monsey, his stamp was everywhere, from mikvaos to yeshivos, P’eylim and Rav Meir Ba’al Haness. As the Vizhnitzer Rebbe, Rav Yisrael Hager, told his family at Rabbi Rosenbaum’s shivah, “There isn’t one area of kedushah in Monsey that doesn’t have Reb Yankel’s fingerprints on it.”

But even the faint echo of Rabbi Yaakov Rosenbaum captured by the camera — the laugh lines around the wise eyes, a certain depth of expression — tells you that there was far more to this man than his public activism. Drawn from a young age to Torah greats ranging from Rav Aharon Kotler to the Klausenberger Rebbe, he developed a lifelong passion for uplifting others.

That’s because, in addition to his driven nature, Reb Yankel had a sixth sense when it came to others’ suffering. He was already a grandfather when he befriended a small boy standing at the back of shul, who turned out to be from a troubled home. When asked what had moved him to take an interest in someone else’s son, he stated simply: “Because he had sad eyes.”