Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel is a man who needs no introduction — he’s already received hundreds of them during his tenure as Agudath Israel’s executive vice president. But while the public figure named Rabbi Zwiebel is a familiar one, the same can’t be said for the private man — until now.

Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel gets plenty of press time. His voice insights and opinions are included on a fairly regular basis in most Orthodox periodicals. We’re all familiar with his picture and many of us have heard him speak. In short he’s the kind of person the profile writer always on the lookout for fresh personalities to feature would avoid. Everyone knows him right?

Wrong.

First Surprises

It was late Motzaei Shabbos after the keynote session of the Agudath Israel convention had come to a close. Thousands of people had descended on the hotel for the event and most had gone their respective ways back to Brooklyn Monsey or Lakewood. Only the convention guests remained for a late-night Melaveh Malkah and the crowd seemed very small and intimate after the massive gathering.

While people ate and chatted Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel — who’d just delivered a masterful speech — walked in. Everyone rose to their feet in an impromptu display of appreciation and started clapping. How did Rabbi Zwiebel react?

The ovation gathering steam as he stood there trapped him like a deer caught in the headlights. A blush slowly spread across his face climbing to the roots of his hair. He looked perfectly miserable and he was. Agudath Israel’s executive vice president is a shy person. Public as his position may be he’s never grown comfortable with the limelight.

Further evidence that you don’t really know the man: Last summer this magazine asked various public figures for their choices for summer reading — which books they would recommend to the readers and why. The replies were fairly predictable: biographies and Jewish history the occasional hashkafic work. Rabbi Zwiebel suggested a book by Shel Silverstein called The Giving Tree. I thought it was a joke but there were no smiley-faces in the e-mail. I therefore followed up with a phone call.

He earnestly discussed the value of the book which sells for about eight dollars softcover binding with full-color illustrations. He also shared various quotes from the book so laden with depth and meaning that no explanation was necessary.

“I am too big to climb and play” said the boy. “I want to buy things and have fun. I want some money. Can you give me some money?” “I’m sorry” said the tree “but I have no money I have only leaves and apples. Take my apples Boy and sell them in the city. Then you will have money and you will be happy.”

And this: “Cut down my trunk and make a boat” said the tree. “Then you can sail away ... and be happy.” And so the boy cut down her trunk and made a boat and sailed away. And the tree was happy ...

The man who sometimes comes across as somewhat professorial has a deeply creative and original side not always visible in the black-and-white politically correct world of Orthodox diplomacy and bureaucracy. It was this person whom I wanted to get to know. And it was this person who welcomed me to his office at the Agudah headquarters leading me to a cozy sitting area and joking about the quality of the coffee.

Ben Yachid

Reb Chaim Dovid is a product of a generation in which grandparents were rare. His mother’s father, a Kossover einekel with the illustrious name of Reb Mendel Hager, survived the war in Europe, only to be gunned down in Jerusalem in 1948. Other than that, there were no other grandparents.

“In my class at Chofetz Chaim, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, there were maybe three children who had grandparents,” he comments.

Reb Yankev Zwiebel, his father, had been a successful banker in Danzig, Germany  — today Gdansk, Poland. When the Nazis ascended to power, the climate changed. One day he was so badly beaten by a Nazi that he carried scars from the beating for the rest of his life. He was determined to leave  but since he knew the challenges of finding an ehrliche girl in America, he was equally determined to marry before he went. In 1939, he found his bashert, Menucha Hager. Soon after the wedding, he took advantage of an immigration law that allowed entrance to the United States to anyone with $5,000 in cash. The hitch was that the law only allowed him to immigrate, without his spouse.

His new wife had an appointment at the American consulate in Warsaw on September 9, 1939. As it turned out, the date came eight days after Warsaw had been bombed, and the consulate was closed. She therefore embarked on a journey of her own, via Hungary and Greece, eventually arriving in America on Erev Yom Kippur 1940.

The newly reunited Zwiebels tried to build a new life. Reb Yankev worked in the hosiery business, later becoming a wholesale lulav vendor. The family davened in the warm confines of the Sassover shtiebel, a community of shattered people united by shared experiences and dreams of a better tomorrow, as well as devoted to raising a new generation in a new world.

“Yisro’s daughter referred to Moshe Rabbeinu as the ‘ish Mitzri hitzilanu.’ Chazal say it’s a reference to the Mitzri that Moshe had killed in Mitzrayim, an act that caused him to run. The Mitzri had been the catalyst in saving them. I always think about that, how the Nazi who beat my father really saved him. In fact, both my parents were the lone survivors of their families.”

Little Chaim Dovid was a ben yachid born after two girls. Did he have any childhood heroes?

“Other than Mickey Mantle?” He pauses. “Don’t worry, that changed when I got older and smarter,” he deadpans. A longer pause. “Because I became a Mets fan.

“On a serious level, my sisters were certainly a big part of my life: they were brilliant and gifted.” A fleeting look crosses his face, pensiveness, a touch of pain.

“My older sisters were special. Sarah was the brilliant one, and Gladys had this exceptional gift with people. Later, the world would know her as Rebbetzin Zahava Braunstein, but to me, she was Gladys. I remember attending a school play and she had a starring role, as Captain Maguire. She had the whole audience in stitches; she just had this flair for drama. It was my first lesson in how a personality trait can be used for the good. Much later she was diagnosed with the illness that would eventually claim her life, but for 15 years she suffered in silence. No one knew how sick she was. She acted, just as she had back then, smiling, speaking, teaching with her customary energy and enthusiasm.”

Chaim Dovid attended Torah Vodaath, and after graduating high school he took accounting classes at night. “That was before the days of yeshivah credits,” he explains. “Most of us would remain in yeshivah by day and attend Brooklyn College at night.”

He married the daughter of Reb Chaim Yitzchok Rosner, a son-in-law of the legendary Satmar rosh hakahal Reb Sender Freund. With Vizhnitzer lineage and Satmar influence, how did he end up with Agudath Israel?

His relationship with the organization began while he was still a teenager, when he led Shabbos Pirchei groups at Rabbi Vorhand’s shul, on the West Side. Later, he was asked to write for the Zeirei Forum, an Agudah-sponsored publication for younger readers. A gifted writer, he was soon appointed editor. His columns from that era, “Thoughts from the Editor’s Desk,” typewritten, the lines slightly crooked, are bursting with eloquence.

He joined the kollel of Torah Vodaath after he married. “But after two years, my shver had ‘the talk’ with me. It was time to find a parnassah.”

Reb Chaim Dovid had majored in accounting and taken additional classes in psychology at Brooklyn College, but since that wasn’t what he wanted to do he enrolled at Cardozo Law School. There, he distinguished himself as someone with a sharp legal mind. His writing skills drew attention as well, and the Spring 1979 issue of the Cardozo Law Review featured David Zwiebel at the very top of the masthead, in his role as editor in chief of Volume I.

“Of all the many hobbies and pursuits that I’ve been forced to give up over the years, I miss writing the most,” he admits. “I found it so stimulating.”

After graduating, he interviewed with a law firm — and experienced an encounter that would help shape his worldview.

Reb Chaim Dovid explains that in those days it was hard for a person wearing a yarmulke to get an interview. When he entered the interview room, the associate looked at the yarmulke and then at him with surprise.

“He studied my yarmulke and said, ‘An observant Jew, huh?’ I nodded. He then said, ‘I’m also Jewish, but I got to tell you that I really resent you guys. On Friday afternoon, when we’re knee-deep in a case, Mel from down the hall — he’s Orthodox, like you — suddenly gets up and excuses himself. He’s got to get home before sundown. I never get to leave that way. It’s unfair, and it really bothers me.’

“You can laugh,” says Reb Chaim Dovid, “but I never forgot his resentment. It taught me that even though we have the right to defend our religious liberties — and I’ve spent a good part of my career defending those liberties — we still have to take into account how they perceive it, as unfair. We need to try to validate what they feel when we insist that we can’t work Shabbos of Yom Tov. Our values aren’t negotiable, but how we relate to the workers around us certainly is.”

He adds that it’s not only true in the workplace, but in our communities as well. “We have to understand that when we move into a neighborhood en masse and start demanding change, people are going to be frustrated. Yes, we have legitimate needs, but we need to take their perspective into account.”

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison was, and still is, one of the most prestigious law firms in the country. They snapped up the young lawyer.

An Honorable Offer

Chaim Dovid Zwiebel was still in his early 20s when he began work at the law firm. He and his growing family had settled in Boro Park, where he was part of the chaburah that formed Emunas Yisroel, Rav Moshe Wolfson’s kehillah. By anyone’s measure, this child of survivors was on the fast track to achieving the American dream.

A few years later, Rabbi Menachem Lubinsky, director of Agudath Israel’s department of government and public affairs, decided to leave for the private sector. Rabbi Shmuel Bloom, who was then executive vice president of the Agudah, paid a visit to Paul, Weiss. After recruiting the young lawyer as a convention attendee, he planted the seeds of the idea that Reb Chaim Dovid could find a position with the organization.

“The next thing I knew, Rabbi Moshe Sherer invited me to his home for a meeting,” he recalls. “I took the offer seriously.”

Obviously, the salary at Agudah wasn’t even close to what he was earning at Paul, Weiss. “Rabbi Bloom addressed remuneration by quoting the words from bentsching: Harachaman Hu yefarneseinu b’kavod. ‘Some people receive parnassah with money, and some with kavod. We can’t do much by way of the first, but we can deliver on the kavod.’

“Both parts of his promise were fulfilled: little money, and lots of kavod. The first part I got used to, but the second half is still difficult. I am a bashful person, as was my father.

“When I was contemplating whether to accept the offer, I thought about Rosh HaShanah, when I had asked my oldest son, Sender, what he’d had in mind by the tefillos. He answered me, ‘That Mashiach should come and that your office should burn down and you’ll have to stay home.’ Had it not been for Shabbos, I wouldn’t have seen my children at all, and they were growing older.

“Another thought that scared me concerned my best friend. I’ve had the same two chavrusos for years — Reb Yitzchok Landerer and Reb Yechiel Landau — and we’re extremely close, but my closest friend at that time was a fellow named Tom Fleming, who worked right next to me at the firm.”

Reb Chaim Dovid went to discuss the Agudah’s offer with Rav Pam and the Novominsker Rebbe, both of whom advised him to make the switch.

“I remember that first convention, sitting in the audience and feeling part of Klal Yisrael in a way that I’d never experienced before. I’d known, intellectually, that I was a small part of a whole, but there I felt like I could touch it.

“As an aside, that’s a great part of the beauty and meaning of attending the Siyum HaShas. At previous siyumim, we got this feedback from many people who hadn’t even learned the daf, and didn’t expect to feel like mechutanim. But sitting there and soaking up the atmosphere gives a new meaning to the term Knesses Yisrael. Deep in our neshamos, we all carry the same spark. When you’re part of that kind of tzibbur, it becomes a raging fire and you can feel it.”

Reactions to his decision to leave the firm varied, although not in the way that one might expect. “My colleagues at the firm looked up from their desks and said, ‘That’s amazing. You’re so lucky.’ My friends in Boro Park said, ‘Are you meshugge?’”

A New Voice on the Block

Working under the tutelage of Rabbi Moshe Sherer was at once limiting and empowering. “He had a rare blend. He was a very hands-on boss — he insisted on reading any letter or brief I wrote — but he also invested me with tremendous confidence. One day I brought him a letter to approve, and he smiled broadly. ‘I trust you. I don’t need to read it.’ That was a huge boost to me.”

Even though the work was equally hard, it was much more fulfilling than his previous job. “I found that I had more sippuk writing letters defending the rights of Shabbos observers than writing antitrust liability briefs for Paul, Weiss.”

One of the early cases that Rabbi Zwiebel was involved in was the religious discrimination suit against the village of Airmont, New York.

“It was a prototypical case, a village with zoning ordinances designed to keep out religious Jews. We tried to find lawyers who would take the case pro bono — there are enough good lawyers at good firms that encourage taking on civil liberties cases — but it was hard. I myself had done pro bono work with Paul, Weiss when we defended the United Jewish Council of the Lower East Side against charges of discrimination against the Hispanic community in marketing a housing project. Actually, through the Lower East Side case I got to meet the askanim of that neighborhood, many of whom became close colleagues later on — Shelly Silver, Doug Jablon, Heshy Jacob, and Willie Rapfogel.

“But getting back to Airmont, we needed legal might to partner with us. Finally, this Christian religious freedom organization called the Rutherford Group read about the case in the New York Times, and they helped us significantly. Eventually, through our own contacts, we got the Justice Department to commence its own discrimination proceedings against the village.

“I remember how it bothered me that with so many talented frum lawyers, we didn’t have our own to represent us. Today, baruch Hashem, it’s a nachas to see what kind of resources we have — dedicated, gifted, hard-working frum professionals.”

The young Agudah staffer was emerging as an eloquent voice for a frum community that was itself emerging. “The Jews were comfortable in America. The postwar generation was established, and they had the inclination and confidence to make demands. They paid taxes and they wanted aid for yeshivos, respect for Shabbos observance, zoning that didn’t exclude them. They also wanted a comfortable moral climate.”

One of the early briefs he filed was against the administration of New York City’s mayor, Ed Koch, regarding Executive Order 50, which ruled that companies with hiring policies that discriminated based on orientation couldn’t do business with the city. “Obviously, at Agudah we had moral standards and we expected our staffers to share those values. Our partnerships with the city were therefore threatened. We were joined in that lawsuit by the Salvation Army and Catholic Charities, which had the same issues as we did.

“Rabbi Sherer entrusted me with the case. When we won in the lower court, they appealed. Then we lost in the intermediate court. When we reached the highest court, Rabbi Sherer insisted that I bring in Professor Aaron Twerski and Nat Lewin. It was humbling for me, but we won.”

He shares an amusing, if instructive, story. “Before the hearing, Judge Alvin Klein called all the parties to the lawsuit into his chambers for a meeting, hoping to avoid trial. The judge asked if there was any hope of compromise. The lawyer for one of the religious groups, a distinguished, WASPy-looking fellow, spoke up. ‘There is nothing to discuss. My clients view these people as condemned to eternal damnation.’

“Later, the opposing lawyer, a nice Jewish boy, came over to me, and said, ‘Look, I understand your position, Rabbi, but don’t you realize that this same lawyer says the same thing — condemned — about us Jews, when we leave the room?’ It was a nice reminder of the funny and delicate world we live in, where we’re constantly walking this tightrope between intolerant or intolerable.”

The New York State get law was another major project. “It was fascinating for me to learn about the interface between halachah and the law. It was an opportunity to sit with major poskim and see, firsthand, the applications of their knowledge.”

Rabbi Zwiebel recalls a challenging moment when the California State Assembly was deliberating a get law of its own. It was sponsored by Assemblyman Alister McAlister, who had a Jewish secretary whose husband wouldn’t give her a get. He therefore tried to help her. Reb Chaim Dovid flew to California for the proceedings and was invited to address the assembly.

McAlister went first. “Judaism,” he began, “is a harsh and archaic religion, and when it comes to marriage, it’s totally in favor of the man. That obligates us to right this wrong system and help the woman protect her rights.”

Rabbi Zwiebel faced a dilemma: the assemblyman was his biggest ally in sponsoring the bill, but at the same time, his words couldn’t be ignored.

“The assemblyman is wrong,” said the lawyer from New York. “The Torah is a system that is not in favor either of the man or of the woman, but in favor of marriage. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if society understood what marriage is meant to be — the responsibilities, duties, and obligations of a real marriage?

“What the assemblyman is right about,” he continued, “is that we lack the ability to enforce the Torah’s will. We therefore turn to you, our elected officials and good friends, for help.”

Under Rabbi Sherer, he also learned the “hashkafah” of shtadlanus, public activism. “He would constantly need to think beyond our own community and work with other demographics and interest groups to help them achieve common goals.

“He also taught us not to apologize for standing firm for our principles, even when the cause we had to champion was a hard sell. Take the issue of organ donation, for example. How can we ask, in good faith, to receive organ donations and transplants, when we aren’t prepared to donate them to others, in many cases?

“There was a bill in the Senate called ‘presumed consent,’ which stated that even people who haven’t signed the organ donation card are presumed to be donors unless they explicitly state that they aren’t. Of course, we were opposed to the bill, but our stance opened us up to the obvious attack: ‘So you guys will only accept, but not give?’

“Rabbi Sherer taught us to be unapologetic. Yes, our Torah says we can accept and it also says that we cannot always give, but we are not the Torah’s salesmen. And the fact is that it’s discriminatory to pass a bill that doesn’t allow us to act in accordance with our religion. So we fought it and got the bill withdrawn.”

He credits another mentor, Rabbi Shmuel Bloom, with giving him an additional tool necessary for the askan’s arsenal: optimism. “No matter how large an event or how daunting an undertaking was, Reb Shmuel always saw the opportunities. He focused on what needed to be done and ignored the cynics or scoffers. It’s a lesson that has constant relevance.”

A Nail that Sticks Out

Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel is today executive vice president of Agudath Israel, the highest executive position within the organization. While Agudah is governed by a board of trustees, to whom he is directly accountable, the members of the Moetzes Gedolei Torah are the final arbiters of Agudah policy. He is in frequent contact with them, especially with the Novominsker Rebbe, who carries the title Rosh Agudas Yisrael.

In addition to the central office located in Manhattan, which has approximately 20 employees, there are Agudah offices around the country that are involved in government advocacy and social services for the community.

It’s a job that is full-time and then some. And in some ways his position is more difficult than it was for his predecessors. Rabbi Sherer left a golden legacy as a leader, diplomat, and statesman, respected even by those camps within Orthodoxy that saw him as too far to the right, or to the left. But that was when the world was still normal. There was no Internet and no blogs and no open forum where people could join together, without risk of exposure or humiliation, to mock and malign the very fundamental upon which the organization was built: respect for gedolei Torah.

In a sense, Rabbi Zwiebel has been left holding the bag in an era of unprecedented vulnerability, when the organization’s unyielding, unapologetic allegiance to its rabbinic leaders has left it swimming against the tide. Yet his mandate is to keep the organization relevant and respected, without a website, Twitter feed, or Facebook page. How does he deal with today’s challenges?

Rabbi Zwiebel speaks with his characteristic softness, but there is fire in his eyes. “Look, I don’t write off the bloggers as leitzanim and reshaim, because they will be judged, as we all will, after 120 years for their motivations and techniques. I’m not a condemner, by nature.

“I do believe that among them there are people who are deeply pained about certain issues and feel that this is the way they can express their pain. I will even go a step further and say that through the pressure they’ve created, communal issues that needed to be confronted were moved to the front burner and taken seriously. A case in point is abuse and molestation issues. The question is, if the fact that they’ve created some degree of change is worth the cost. At the very least, it’s rechilus, lashon hara, and bittul zman. That’s a high price to pay.

“Then there is the damage wrought to the hierarchy of Klal Yisrael. We’ve always been a talmid chacham–centered nation, and it’s dangerous to ruin the fabric of Klal Yisrael by denigrating the ideal of daas Torah and by allowing personal attacks on gedolei Torah.”

What about personal attacks against Rabbi Zwiebel himself?

He shrugs. “Rabbi Sherer used to say that a nail that sticks out of the wall gets hammered. When you’re in the public eye, criticism is inevitable. It’s not pleasant, but it comes with the territory.”

He readily concedes that Agudah hasn’t done a great job of spreading its message. “It’s part of our mandate to communicate the perspective of gedolim on contemporary issues, and we are aware that we have been handicapped since the Jewish Observer closed down. We take the challenge seriously, and are constantly working on improving our communications.”

Reb Chaim Dovid believes that the process of decision-making through the Moetzes is as close to perfect as can be. “It’s a homogeneous group of the most intelligent, empathetic individuals — all great talmidei chachamim — and they grasp all aspects of an issue right away.”

He shares one of his favorite stories. “We were dealing with a very complex legal issue and before deciding on a course of action, we sat down with the Moetzes. I, and the other lawyers, along with Rabbi Sherer, delineated two options and recommended the first one. The gedolim suggested we follow the second option.

“We’d invested so much energy and work in the first option, and I was deeply disappointed. Then I noticed that Rabbi Sherer was happy, even though he himself had been among those who had recommended the other path, and I wondered why he was in such a good mood. ‘Today,’ he beamed at me, ‘is the reason that I joined Agudath Israel — precisely for the times that I understand things one way and they perceive it another way, and we follow them. That’s a good day.’”

Private Man, Public Figure

Political writers are constantly writing columns devoted to answering the question “Who is the real Barack Obama?” That was my goal in the elevator going up to the 14th floor, to somehow connect not with the Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel behind the podium, but the man who admits to counting Shel Silverstein and Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are) among his favorite writers; the man who’s happiest during the evening hours when he’s in Landau’s Shul learning with Reb Yechiel Landau, or pre-Shacharis with Reb Yitzchak Landerer in Rav Schorr’s shul; the man who laughingly told me, “It’s interesting that before starting law school, I studied accounting and psychology. Today, I spend most of my time with money problems and people problems — and none with the law.”

There was a moment during our interview when I asked him about the seemingly unending stream of hate that certain bloggers serve up to the establishment, and what it’s like to see his own face and name impugned by association. In response, he instinctively looked at a family picture of his children and eineklach. Then he looked back at me and shrugged, a fairly elaborate shrug, as if to say, “That is who I am. The blogs can’t reach me.”

He has carved out a private spot in his very public world, zealously guarding his space — family, shul, chavrusos — and maintaining barriers in a world where there are few.

I had found the real Rabbi Zwiebel.

On the Record:

Quotable Quotes from Rabbi Zweibel

“Anyone who thinks gedolim are out of touch should try, just once, making the effort to speak with a gadol. They’re accessible and they’re sweet — and very in-touch.”

“You can never forget the resentment of the people who oppose our religious rights. They also have rights, and being resentful is one of those rights.”

“If you buy into the ideals of Agudath Yisrael, then you’re buying into the ideal of daas Torah. You can’t have one without the other.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 411)