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| Magazine Feature |

How the West Was Won

Rabbi Yochanan Stepen transformed the Torah landscape of Los Angeles

Rabbi Yochanan Stepen’s many students, admirers, and friends remember him as a magical presence, a larger-than-life hero come to lead the children of the Valley — and by extension their parents — into the enchanting realm of Torah. His outsized personality and magnetism drew kids to him like bees to honey.

His charisma had its source in his immense love and enthusiasm for Torah and Jewish children. As a mechanech and the educational director of Emek Hebrew Academy for 31 years, his bren for Torah set everyone around him on fire.

Erev Yom Kippur marks Rabbi Stepen’s fourth yahrtzeit, but his imprint on the Valley remains vibrant and thriving. When he started at Emek in 1973, the school had 70 students. Today, the student body numbers almost 1,000, with an immense campus and separate early childhood center.

How did one man accomplish so much?

 

Who Will Learn with My Son?

For Rabbi Stepen a"h, a Jew was a Jew — no matter what he looked like or how little he knew. He understood that if a Jew isn’t religious, it’s because no one ever showed him the beauty of Torah.

Rabbi Stepen’s parents, the children of Russian immigrants, eked out a living in the dry-cleaning business in a rough neighborhood in downtown Chicago. The children went to public school, but Yochanan, the second child of three and the oldest boy, always felt drawn to Yiddishkeit.

“His parents sent him to a sleepaway camp when he was about six years old that must have been Orthodox,” says his daughter Mirie Lazar. “After that, as a kid, he would make ‘Shabbos classes’ for the other kids. He’d even find people to come speak to them.”

When he approached bar mitzvah age, his mother brought him to the Skokie Yeshiva. “Can someone here help my son learn for his bar mitzvah?” she asked.

“I’ll learn with him,” volunteered a bochur named Gershon Weinberg. The two bonded, to the point where Gershon wrote a play designed for Yochanan to take the starring role. He ultimately influenced Yochanan to make the switch from the local high school to the Skokie Yeshiva.

After high school, he continued his yeshivah studies in Eretz Yisrael in Yeshivas Chevron, undeterred by the lack of American peers and his inability to speak much Hebrew. The mashgiach, Rav Hirsch Paley, took him under his wing, and he developed close relationships with the roshei yeshivah, Rav Yechezkel Sarna and Rav Simcha Zissel Broide. He would walk Rav Zalman Sorotzkin home from shul and be meshamesh him. He also developed a close friendship with Rav Hillel Zaks. Another of his chavrusas and mentors was Rav Baruch Mordechai Ezrachi, now rosh yeshivah of Ateres Yisrael and a member of the Degel HaTorah Moetzes Gedolei Yisrael. Although a few years older, Rav Ezrachi remained a close personal friend over the years. He would visit Rabbi Stepen when he was in Los Angeles, and Rabbi Stepen would go see him when he was in Eretz Yisrael. In fact, Rav Ezrachi was one of the maspidim at Rabbi Stepen’s levayah.

His living conditions were rough, but Rabbi Stepen learned with tremendous hasmadah and was soaring in lomdus. “He was undeterred by the fact that he was the only American boy there, that he didn’t have money and sometimes even food,” his wife, Mrs. Chana Stepen, relates. Their son Rabbi Eliezer Stepen, who heads Kollel Zichron Yochanan in Jerusalem, adds, “He used to borrow money from a makolet for food. After he left, it took him seven years to pay it back.”

Excerpted from Mishpacha Magazine. To view full version, SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE or LOG IN.

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