Rabbi Armo Kuessous is the first stop and last word in chinuch today

Photos: Naftoli Goldgrab, Family archives

When parents bring their four- and five-year-old sons to Yeshivat Shaare Torah in Brooklyn for their Pre-1A interview, they aren’t directed to an office to wait. Instead, the principal, Rabbi Armo (Amram) Kuessous, meets them right at the door. “Wow!” he exclaims. “This must be the famous Yaakov/Avi/Ezra!”

It’s a typical encounter for Rabbi Kuessous (pronounced “Kesoos”), whose gift for putting the boys and their parents immediately at ease, together with his natural warmth and intuition, sets the tone for the entire school. He also brings those special talents of innovation, creativity and heart to Mesivta Torah Temimah, where he serves as the general studies principal. Rabbi Kuessous is a top name in chinuch today with an unusual crossover appeal as an administrator in both Sephardi and Ashkenazi yeshivos. Master mechanech that he is, Rabbi Kuessous is additionally famed for his summer job as head counselor of Camp Romimu, where over 600 boys receive an injection of Torah ruach and fun that buoys them with inspiration long after their mothers have washed the last suitcase of dirty laundry.

Rabbi Kuessous’ signature blend of authority and warmth is really the continuation of a family legacy. His parents were newcomers to North America, yet their instinctive understanding that a yeshivah chinuch was the best — and only — guarantee of their children’s future eventually made the family name synonymous with chinuch excellence a generation later.

Esther Kuessous, Reb Armo’s wife, remembers her mother-in-law as a warm and devout woman, completely devoted to her family, and constantly engaged in conversations with Hashem. Her father-in-law was hardworking, charming, and a model of integrity. “The Kuessous children grew up on a shoestring, but they were always proud and content,” Esther says.

Eliyahu and Luna Kuessous left Morocco in 1957 to settle in Toronto. Their sons Moshe and Jack had already been born, and Mrs. Kuessous gave birth to her daughter Merchie (today Merchie Herskovits) a month after her arrival. Armo, originally given the French name Armand (English speakers heard it as Armo, and Armo it remained) would also be born in Toronto, the youngest of the family, with a 12-year gap between him and his oldest brother Moshe a”h — who would become a venerated mechanech and Reb Armo’s own role model.

Reb Armo’s grandparents in Morocco were pious, sincere Yidden — his paternal grandfather had a long white beard — but his parents’ generation had already become more Europeanized. “It’s because we didn’t have enough Jewish schools in Morocco that we lost some of our Yiddishkeit,” Rabbi Kuessous says, yet they retained a sense of emunah peshutah and veneration of rabbanim. Rabbi Kuessous’s father was still growing in his Yiddishkeit at the point when he was looking to get married, and when he met the daughter of a distinguished Torah family, he knew she was the one he wanted to marry.

While Rabbi Kuessous’ maternal grandfather was a talmid chacham and yirei Shamayim, he allowed his daughter to marry the handsome, successful businessman from Tangiers. No one would have predicted that beneath the dashing exterior lay an as-yet untapped bren for Torah that would one day transform him into an icon of Toronto’s frum community.