The Star-Spangled Syrian Rabbi
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.
The older folks’ lack of English didn’t bode well for the youth of the next generation. They saw it as a great divide, indicating a lack of sophistication on the part of the Syrian Jewish leadership. Furthermore, for those returning from their US military service in World War II, the years of training and combat in a totally non-Jewish environment — not to mention the trauma and depression from the gruesome sights of battle — took their toll. Many halted their mitzvah observance altogether.
But the community fought for its self-preservation, and designated a large room on the upper floor of the Bnai Magen David shul for Rabbi Hecht’s young congregation. Soon his minyan had 700 people.
“Rabbi Hecht was a leading factor in helping build our great community,” says real estate mogul Morris Bailey, a prominent member of the Syrian Jewish community. “He was our intellectual leader, and he showed us how Judaism must be part of our modern lives. He reached out to our community with love and passion.”
Hecht later became the rabbi of Congregation Shaare Zion, which grew to over 3,500 families under his leadership, and which today is the largest Sephardic congregation in North America.
For many years he served as vice president of the Sephardic Rabbinical Council, president of Rabbinical Council for Syrian Jewry in North America, and president of Igud Harabbonim (Rabbinical Alliance) of America.
Danger Zone
As the leader of one of the largest Sephardic communities in the United States, Rabbi Hecht made their wellbeing a top priority, prompting his visit to the United Nations after the Six Day War.
“You are all representatives of different Arab countries,” the rabbi told the Arab diplomats. “I strongly urge you to convince the government bodies in your countries to place the entire Jewish population in Syria under the protection of the Red Crescent [the Middle East organization paralleling the Red Cross].”
The UN delegates erupted into an uncontrolled, explosive shouting match.
“As you know,” he continued, “there are numerous Syrian immigrants in North and South America who have been cruelly separated from their families back home. A lot of money and much effort has been expended to reunite them on American soil, but the immigrants’ parents and siblings cannot obtain permission to leave their Syrian homes. In our modern, democratic world, how can one forcibly separate a family unit?”
The Arabs did take Rabbi Hecht’s modest requests seriously, but on the flip side, there was pressure from their governments to place ads in US newspapers supporting the Arab nations in their war against Israel.
Rabbi Hecht’s delegation left the UN without reaching an agreement, but they later learned that the meeting did have an effect. “The Jews living in Syria informed us that after our meeting, President Assad issued strict warnings to all Syrian citizens against attacking any Jew or Jewish house,” Rabbi Hecht said.
Rabbi Hecht kept the struggle for Jews still in Syria on the map until the late 1990s, when they were finally granted permission to leave.
The Vision
You couldn’t fail to notice Rabbi Hecht when he entered a room. His stature, his long white beard, and penetrating eyes brought an air of seriousness and importance to any gathering. “He was a man of action,” says his son-in-law Rabbi Nochum Kaplan, a longtime educator who heads the chinuch office at Lubavitch World Headquarters, “and whatever the need, he saw to it that it would happen.”
Rabbi Hecht worked tirelessly on lifting the spiritual posture of the community. He placed special emphasis on the basics, which were by no means a given — kashrus, taharas hamishpachah, and Jewish education. He encouraged the kehillah to build a beautiful new mikveh for the Syrian community.
“The strength of this community comes from within,” Rabbi Hecht once proudly said in an interview.
Over the years Rabbi Hecht presided over more than 3,000 weddings. Although his personal minhagim were different, he never imposed them on his congregants; instead, he became fluent in the customs of his kehillah, and would happily don a white gown and cap before a wedding, according to the Syrian custom. Once a woman called him in distress, crying to the rabbi that her son had decided to marry an Ashkenazic girl. He was so integrated within the community that it never dawned on the woman that she was speaking to an Ashkenazic rabbi.
Rabbi Hecht might have embraced the Sephardic customs of his congregation, but there’s one thing he couldn’t change. Rabbi Hecht could not tolerate the very spicy Sephardic foods. He would spend hours at the generous Shabbos kiddush speaking to community members, inquiring how each was doing personally and spiritually. Yet, during the entire time he would only nibble olives and one type of mild cracker.
A gifted orator, Rabbi Hecht’s speeches were packages of fiery inspiration — and, as a man of no compromise, he wasn’t afraid to speak about controversial issues that might make his congregants unhappy. “He taught from his heart and soul,” recalls Mrs. Raquel Boujo, “and reached out to all those who attended. He taught a love for all things he believed in. And he spoke with such power and force that no one missed his message.”
When he was already 90 and residing at the Sephardic Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Bensonhurst (ten years ago a fire destroyed his home and tragically took his wife Liba’s life) people would come visit him and say, “We can’t wait for you to gain strength and once again give your speeches in the beit haknesset.”
But 17 years before, in 1995, that same synagogue asked him to take a leave of absence, after a news article quoted him as having told a group of rabbis that Jewish law, at least according his understanding of the Rambam, could consider an Israeli leader who betrays the Jewish People by giving away parts of Eretz Yisrael to the enemy as a rodef. After Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin’s assassination following his signing of the Oslo Accords, Rabbi Hecht’s words came under media scrutiny and he was accused of fomenting a political climate that led to the murder. In addition to being given a six-month paid leave from Shaare Zion, Rabbi Hecht and six other American rabbis were barred from entering Israel because of “security considerations.” Rabbi Hecht, who at the time said his words were taken out of context, in fact had a personal relationship with Rabin that spanned many years, and before the assassination even penned the prime minister a letter explaining that he was in no way implying a personal attack.
For almost two decades the congregation was torn over the decision, and at Rabbi Hecht’s 90th birthday celebration in March 2012 — graced by Who’s Who of Sephardic leaders including Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, Rabbi Shaul Kassin, and Rabbi Chanania Elbaz — Shaare Zion’s leadership pleaded for Rabbi Hecht’s forgiveness on behalf of their community.
It’s Just the Accent
Rabbi Hecht, who was a Lubavitcher chassid at his core and whose children and grandchildren are Chabad shluchim around the globe, became a Sephardic rabbi’s rabbi. Rav Mordechai Eliyahu ztz”l preferred to reside in the Hecht home on his visits to the US; Rav Ovadiah Yosef ztz”l was often a guest of the grand synagogue; and Rabbi Hecht kept in close correspondence with late Syrian chief rabbi Chacham Yaakov Katzin ztz”l.
“My father learned to love talmidei chachamim in his parents’ home,” says his son Rabbi Yehoshua Hecht, rav of the Beth Israel of Westport, Connecticut. “And his love for the Sephardic chachamim, the great rabbis, was clearly evident in his interactions with them as the rav of the largest Sephardic shul in North America. He had no intention of transforming the Sephardic community to be like him. He wanted them to build on their own strengths, and to be infused with the inspiration that Torah and mitzvos are equally their legacy.”
The custom in Shaare Zion from before Rabbi Hecht’s time, according to Rabbi Yehoshua Hecht, was that when a baby boy was born the father would receive an aliyah and a special pizmon would be sung — but there was no pizmon for the birth of a girl. Rabbi Hecht objected; why, he asked, should there be a difference in the display of gratitude for the birth of a girl? “Chas v’shalom that there should be less simchah for a girl,” he said.
He wrote to Israeli Chief Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Uziel ztz”l, who responded that surely the community should celebrate the birth of a girl just like they celebrate the birth of a boy. Rabbi Hecht publicized the answer, and he always felt a great merit in giving expression to the joy of the birth of girls in the Sephardic kehillos.
Once Rabbi Hecht received a phone call from Rav Moshe Feinstein ztz”l about a stringency within the Syrian Jewish community that had protected it from the scourge of intermarriage.
“I remember — it was in the middle of supper,” recalls his son. “Reb Moshe wanted to know why the community was refusing to accept a marriage that was kosher according to halachah. Rabbi Hecht explained to the sage that in this area the community has been upholding a stringent takanah since the 1930s. After hearing the explanation, Rav Moshe responded, ‘Du tust gerecht — you are doing the right thing!’”
“I think you are more Sephardic than the Sephardim. You’re more dedicated to the community than the community is dedicated to themselves,” Swiss financier and World Sephardi Federation president Nissim Gaon once told Rabbi Hecht.
Rabbi Hecht once brought Isaac Shalom — one of Sephardic Jewry’s greatest philanthropists and the man who had secured him his position years before — to the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe ztz”l. On the way to the meeting Rabbi Hecht suggested that Mr. Shalom give the Rebbe a donation for his good work with Sephardic children in Morocco and Tunisia.
During the audience Mr. Shalom asked, “Lubavitcher Rebbe, I do not understand you. Why don’t you write a letter to G-d asking Him to send you the money that Rabbi Hecht says you need to continue your good work?”
The Rebbe responded, “Mr. Shalom, if I were to write such a letter to G-d, I would be asking him to take away my job! We need to toil in order to make a difference, and not just pray that G-d do everything for us.”
Syrian Jewish philanthropist Joe Carrey — who said that “Rabbi Hecht was the first rabbi of the Syrian community who knew how to speak to an American crowd” — commented that the only difference between the community and Rabbi Hecht was the pronunciation. “It’s all one Torah,” he said.
Rabbi Meyer Yedid, Rosh Yeshivat Derech Eretz and rabbi of the Shaare Zion Torah Center, spoke about Rabbi Hecht at a memorial gathering in his honor. “Before Moshe died, he cried out to Hashem that Am Yisrael needs a leader who will care for each and every Jew. Moshe Rabbeinu’s plea was for all generations, and that prayer was why a third-generation American-born Ashkenazic rabbi was chosen for us.”
Rabbi Hecht, for his part, always saw his role as a natural progression. “I am still very much identified with chassidus,” Avraham Dov Hecht wrote in his autobiography, “which has shown me the proper way of life in the American wasteland. My situation might have appeared bizarre, yet I found the description of a Lubavitcher Sephardic rabbi quite comfortable. Although there wasn’t a trace of Sephardic ancestry in my extended family tree, I feel an inexplicable affinity with the community I have learned to lead and understand.”
Shabbos or Wallet?
In 1885, Rabbi Hecht’s grandfather, Tzvi Elimelech (“Hersh Meilich”) Hecht, a Shinever chassid, reached American shores with the blessings of his rebbe, Rav Yechezkel Halberstam. The Rebbe knew of Hersh Meilich’s piety and stringent Torah observance, and therefore harbored no hesitations concerning his journey to the “treife medinah,” the land where many Jews would throw off their yoke of Judaism. After trying his hand at business, Reb Hersh Meilich ran the local mikveh on Prospect Place in Brownsville, Brooklyn. The mikveh became a popular stop for the many rabbanim and meshulachim who came to Brownsville to raise money for their institutions (Hersh Meilich would often wrap a few dollars in a towel and give it to those in need), but it was also a place of tragedy: Reb Hersh Meilich was murdered by someone trying to rob him while performing his mikveh duties.
Rabbi Hecht’s father Yehoshua (Shea) was born in 1896. With no proper Jewish education on American shores, in 1908 Shea Hecht traveled to Jerusalem to learn at Yeshivas Chayei Olam, where he remained for the next six years.
Back in New York, he later married Sorah, the daughter of Yeshaya (Shialeh) Auster, a brave Galitzianer chassid who didn’t let the hardships of living a frum Jewish life in those days deter him. One wintry Friday afternoon when two feet of snow covered the streets of New York. Shialeh found himself on a slow-moving trolley. The bumps on the road didn’t bother him, but the rays of the setting sun made him panic. Shialeh wasted no time and handed the conductor his wallet, which contained most of his weekly earnings. “It’s the onset of our Sabbath,” he told the conductor. “I was hoping you would hold this for me until tomorrow evening.”
He then stepped off the trolley car and started walking home in the snow.
After Shabbos, the trolley car conductor knocked on the door of the Auster residence and handed Reb Shialeh his wallet, with all of its valuable contents completely intact.
Rabbi Hecht’s Auster grandparents lived in Greenpoint, quite a distance from Brownsville where the Hechts lived, yet Rabbi Hecht recalled the weekends he and his brothers spent there ensconced in in the warmth of Shabbos and chassidus. The Austers couldn’t afford to leave the electricity on all Shabbos so tall, majestic candles were used instead. “Although we were an energetic bunch,” Rabbi Hecht said, “the magical atmosphere kept us glued to our seats as Zeide told miracle stories of the Baal Shem Tov and other chassidic rebbes. Our young minds were captivated by the miraculous events of bygone eras and the inherent joy of chassidus.”
Once when visiting his grandparents, he was awakened in the middle of the night by the sounds of heartrending sobs. Young Avraham crept out of bed and cautiously headed toward the kitchen, where he saw his grandfather sitting on the floor, tears streaming down his face. He then heard the soft footsteps of his grandmother, who gently took him by his hand and led him back to bed. “Bubbe,” Avraham asked, “why is Zeide crying?” She explained to him that Reb Shialeh was reciting Tikkun Chatzos, the prayer mourning the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. Rabbi Hecht would later say that those tears pierced his own young heart.
(Originally Featured in XXX, Issue XXX)
Oops! We could not locate your form.
