At a time when Conservative Judaism was seen as the future, an Orthodox Jewish day school in the Rockaways was the daring vision of a local rav named Rabbi Mordechai Shuchatowitz

Title: The Rockaway Torah Revolution

Location: Far Rockaway, New York

Document: The Brooklyn Eagle

Time: September 5, 1939

During the dark days of September 1939, a ray of light shone through the clouds. The Rockaway Peninsula, a summer destination for New York City Jews, inaugurated the home of its first Orthodox day school, the Hebrew Institute of Long Island (HILI).

The 1930s saw the wealthy, assimilated German Jewish community — who summered in the gilded mansions of the seaside community sandwiched between the Atlantic Ocean and Jamaica Bay (today’s Bayswater) — give way to traditional Eastern European Jews, settling down in communities from Edgemere and Arverne down to Far Rockaway and Lawrence.

At a time when Conservative Judaism was seen as the future, an Orthodox Jewish day school in the Rockaways was the daring vision of a local rav named Rabbi Mordechai Shuchatowitz, brother-in-law of Rav Ruderman and Rabbi Naftali Neuberger. He became the founding principal of the Yeshiva of the Rockaways, which opened in the ezras nashim of the Anshe Sefard Shul in Arverne in 1935.

With the help of a devoted congregant named Joseph Yurkowitz, the yeshivah eventually purchased the Beach 19th building and Americanized its name to “Hebrew Institute of Long Island.” This would herald an era when Orthodoxy rose to prominence on the Rockaway peninsula.

One of the speeches at the event was delivered by Rav Yechiel Michel Charlop, son of Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlop of Yerushalayim. After having spent his formative years among the Yerushalayim Torah elite, he immigrated to the United States where he became a prominent member of the Rabbinate. Serving in positions in New York, Ohio and Nebraska, he later assumed the pulpit in the Bronx while serving in leadership positions on national Rabbinical bodies. Among his other activities, he was one of the organizers of the Rabbi's March on Washington before Yom Kippur 1943.

Did you know

HILI has had its fair share of prestigious staff and students over the years. During its early years, a young Rav Reuven Feinstein was a rebbi at HILI’s high school, along with Rabbi Zev Altusky, father of current Darchei Torah Rosh Yeshivah Rav Shlomo Avigdor Altusky. Some famous HILI alumni include Rav Eliezer Kahaneman of Yeshivas Ponevezh, Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch of Slabodka, Rav Asher Zelig Rubinstein, and long-time Yeshiva Darchei Torah lay leader Lloyd Keilson, as well as Prof. Shnayer Leiman and renowned Holocaust historian Dr. Deborah Lipstadt.

In 1978 HILI merged with the nearby Hillel day school to form HAFTR, which continues to be a leading Modern Orthodox institution more than 80 years later. The square-block HILI campus on Seagirt Boulevard was sold to Yeshiva Darchei Torah, which, under the leadership of Rabbi Yaakov Bender, has developed into one of the most prestigious yeshivos in the world.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 827)