He was a third-generation Ashkenazic American with chassidic roots, yet he led a group of Syrian Jewish immigrants to become the largest Sephardic congregation in the US. What was Rabbi Avraham Dov Hecht’s secret that got him hired on the spot after one Shabbos drashah? 

It was 1967, shortly after the miraculous Israeli victory in the Six Day War, when Jews still living in Arab lands found themselves in extreme physical danger. In the halls of the United Nations, in front of an Arab delegation headed by Saudi Arabian ambassador George Baroudy, a group of Sephardic lay leaders and their rabbi made several requests.

“I am the oldest son of Chacham Ibrahim,” the rabbi told the diplomats in fluent Arabic. “My father, may his memory be blessed, was the spiritual leader of the Syrian Jewish community for many long and fruitful years.”

At one point during the meeting Baroudy approached the rabbi with a comradely smile, touched his beard and stated emphatically in Arabic, “Ah! This rabbi is a true Syrian and I respect him!”

The other members of the Syrian Jewish delegation looked at each other knowingly. They knew their rabbi was talented and innovative, but Chacham Ibrahim? Their rabbi was a stars-and-stripes American, yet this venerated Saudi leader had been thoroughly taken in.

The rabbi was Rabbi Avraham Dov Hecht, and his only Middle Eastern ancestor was Avraham Avinu. His roots were in Shinever chassidus and he was American born and bred, yet he spoke fluent Arabic and led the largest Sephardic congregation in the United States for over 60 years.

The story of Rabbi Hecht, who passed away a year ago this week, two months shy of his 91st birthday, isn’t only about the success of an outspoken, charismatic, scholarly American rabbi born at the beginning of the last century; or about how he led several national rabbinic organizations and became a spokesman for no compromise on religious and Israeli territorial issues; it’s the story of how a chassidic rav nurtured and elevated Brooklyn’s Syrian community for over half a century.

To Otwock and Back

Avraham Dov Hecht, the patriarch of a Torah and chassidic empire who had the old-world stature of the great European rabbanim, was actually a third-generation American, born in Brooklyn in March 1922.

His parents, Yehoshua (Shea) and Sorah Hecht, swam against the stream, building their Brownsville home on the foundations of Torah in the face of rampant Americanization.

Theirs was a home of tzedakah and hachnassas orchim, where rabbanim from Eretz Yisrael and Europe were always welcome for a kosher meal and even for an extended stay. Reb Shea and Sorah often gave up their own bedroom for rabbanim and others, and the six Hecht boys did as well.

In My Spiritual Journey, the autobiography Rabbi Avraham Hecht wrote for his family, he recalls how his father Shea used to insist on giving up his own seat at the head of the table in deference to a rabbinical guest, and how “Tatte personally provided fresh linen and blankets for each visitor, as well as negel vasser and a towel for when they woke up.”

The six Hecht brothers learned at Yeshivas Rabeinu Chaim Berlin and later at Yeshivas Torah Vodaath in Williamsburg. Rabbi Hecht would speak with great admiration of his seventh- and eighth-grade teachers at Chaim Berlin, Rabbi Besdansky and Rabbi Pam, the father of Rav Avraham Pam. “They were outstanding rebbeim who knew how to ignite the love of Torah and Yiddishkeit in each of their students.”

While at Torah Vodaath, Shlomo Zalman, the oldest Hecht brother, began attending a weekly study group formed by Rabbi Yisroel Jacobson, a Lubavitcher chassid who reached the United States in 1925.

Rabbi Jacobson was a rav in Brownsville, and his weekly gatherings were both warm and inspiring — a place where teenagers and young men could share their thoughts, questions, and quandaries about Torah and modern America.

The boys were so inspired by Rabbi Jacobson that in the summer of 1939, Avraham Hecht and five friends decided to head off to the Chabad-Lubavitch yeshivah in impoverished Otwock, Poland. But their time in Poland was short-lived; soon the German bombs began to fall. With the help of a brave representative of the Joint, the boys made it out of Poland to Riga, Latvia, and from there to Sweden and back to the US.

Rav Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn ztz”l, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, escaped Europe soon after, reopening the Lubavitcher yeshivah in 1940 in East Flatbush. Avraham Dov was among the first ten students, together with his brother Rabbi Yaakov Yehudah (“JJ”) Hecht — founder of the National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education and a chassidic radio personality known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s “general” — who passed away in 1990.

In 1942, Avraham Hecht became one of the first shluchim, establishing Lubavitch day schools in Worcester, Massachusetts; New Haven, Connecticut; and Buffalo, New York.He also served as the director for the Chabad school in Newark, New Jersey.

In 1944 he married Liba Greenhut and soon after the wedding moved to Dorchester, Massachusetts, where the couple established a Chabad school. But his wife, a recent immigrant from Poland, had a hard time leaving her family in New York, and so the young rabbi contemplated a future as a Jewish educator in a way that wouldn’t interfere with his wife’s happiness.

Will You Be Our Rabbi?

Meanwhile, the young couple spent the summer with her parents in the small town of Fleischmanns in the Catskills. At the time, many well-to-do Syrian Jews chose Fleischmanns as their summer village, living side by side their Ashkenazic neighbors.

The two groups went about their daily routines in separate lanes — the Syrians had their own minyan, sefer Torah, and chazzan, remaining strictly with their own kind. But while the parents barely spoke English, their children were becoming Americanized Yankees. What would be with the next generation?

One day several representatives of the Sephardic community approached Rabbi Hecht with a request: “Rabbi, we’ve been seeing you around the synagogue. Do you speak English fluently?”

Well, he was a third-generation American. “So we were wondering if you could honor our community with a speech in English on Shabbos afternoon.”

Rabbi Hecht was taken aback; there seemed to be an unbridgeable gap between the Sephardim and the Ashkenazim. “There was no animosity involved,” he wrote in his memoir, “yet the two groups were too different to even entertain the possibility of sharing anything more than a friendly greeting. Why would they want a Lubavitcher chassid to speak to them?”

But with nothing to lose and a chance to share some Torah, he agreed. After all, it was all one Torah, wasn’t it?

That Shabbos afternoon, he gave a rousing talk — and he was offered a job on the spot.

Shortly afterward, the famed philanthropist Isaac Shalom visited Rebbe Yosef Yitzchak to inquire about Rabbi Hecht accepting the position. The Rebbe gave his blessing, noting Rabbi Hecht’s success in building Jewish day schools and reassuring Mr. Shalom that the young rabbi would lead their community to greatness.

In 1945 Rabbi Hecht was officially appointed as a rav in Bnai Magen David, a beautiful Sephardic shul in Brooklyn’s Bensonhurst neighborhood that’s still standing in its original location. He became the rabbi for the Sephardic youth and director of the Talmud Torah.

Rabbi Hecht later recalled, “The elders of the community were understandably a little uncomfortable with my position. Syrian immigrants were not familiar with the customs and traditions of other Jewish communities. Not only was I Ashkenazic and a Lubavitcher chassid, but I was also a born and bred American. Unlike the traditional Sephardic rabbis, I was not a chazzan, a mohel, or a baal korei, and I was also extremely young, to boot. Arabic sounded like unintelligible gibberish to my ears, and my Hebrew didn’t meet the expectations of the older generation.”

But their fears were soon alleviated. Rabbi Hecht learned Arabic with a tutor several times a week. He also learned how to speak a better Hebrew. And the congregants were especially grateful that he could connect with their young people.