Always laughing, always teaching, always learning, Rebbetzin Temi Kamenetsky brought thousands closer to Torah

A Century of Torah

Temah Kamenetsky was born in New York to Reb Mordechai and Charna Raizel Brooks. Her father, a chazzan, was a diamond merchant who used to hire poor immigrants as gem cutters. The “greeners” didn’t know the trade, though, and their work was often subpar. Reb Mordechai would return to the office after hours to redo their work, never letting them know he was hiring them simply as a form of charity.

Temi attended public school, supplemented by private lessons, and then Rebbetzin Vichna Kaplan’s seminary.

As a child, she once suffered an ear infection. As she underwent a painful medical procedure to drain her ears, her father cried at the sight of his daughter’s pain. Though in agony herself, young Temi squeezed her father’s hand and comforted him, “Tatteh, veint nisht — don’t cry.” If it was from the Eibeshter, then it was good.

When Rabbi Brooks heard that a talmid chacham, Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky, would be arriving from Toronto to join the hanhalah of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, he quickly arranged to vacate his apartment to provide a place for the Kamenetsky family. Leaving behind a set of candlesticks, he told Rav Yaakov to enjoy them. Sometime later, the Kamenetskys presented the same candlesticks to a beaming Temi Brooks upon her engagement to their son Shmuel.

The shidduch had been suggested by Avraham Zelig Krohn (the father of lecturer Rabbi Paysach Krohn), who had been roommates with Rav Shmuel in Ner Israel, and was now a neighbor of the Brooks family.

The young couple settled in Lakewood, where the chassan had been learning. In the early 1950s, he went, with Rav Aharon Kotler’s blessing, to assist Rav Simcha Wasserman with the yeshivah he had opened in Los Angeles. During the L.A. period, Rebbetzin Temi remained in Williamsburg with her in-laws. On the second day of Shavuos, Rav Yaakov brought his daughter-in-law to the hospital to give birth to her second child, Avraham; Rav Shmuel returned in time for the bris.

Soon, the Kamenetskys moved to Philadelphia, where Rav Shmuel founded Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia, partnering with Rav Dov Schwartzman. (Rav Schwartzman soon relocated to Israel, and the Kamenetskys were joined by Rav Elya Svei and his family.)

A Conservative stronghold, Philadelphia had minimal kosher amenities and no cheder or Bais Yaakov. The growing and rambunctious Kamenetsky brood — seven of whom were born in seven and a half years — attended the local mixed day school, and had a limited pool of like-minded friends. The family’s harbatzas Torah wasn’t universally appreciated; a sixth-grade teacher summed up the attitude of certain segments of the community when he snapped at one of the young girls, “Your father’s a faker!”

A well-meaning acquaintance offered the family a TV to help the Rebbetzin entertain her many children. Though children’s programming was fairly innocuous in those days, it was a line the Rebbetzin wouldn’t cross, and instead she spent years playing, listening, and reading to her children on her own, until the community came of age and the house filled up with their friends.

The family’s first home was far from the yeshivah. Rav Shmuel would take two buses and a trolley daily, and on Shabbos — when the walk was an hour each way — he’d sometimes leave for Shacharis and come home for Havdalah, with the Rebbetzin holding down the fort all day. (Caring husband and father that he was, when the schedule allowed, Rav Shmuel would get the kids up and out to the bus stop himself so the Rebbetzin could rest. On Shabbos mornings, they’d take a walk past the nearby fire station and watch for fire engines.)

When the 11th and youngest Kamenetsky, Eliyahu, was born with Down syndrome, there were no chesed organizations or special schools to step in and offer help. Rebbetzin Kamenetsky attended school with him daily for years, essentially serving as his shadow.