Avraham Kalmanowitz

Avraham Kalmanowitz (also Abraham; he, אברהם קלמנוביץ; March 8, 1887 – 15 February 1964) was an Orthodox rabbi and rosh yeshiva (dean) of the Mir yeshiva in Brooklyn, New York from 1946 to 1964. Born in Belarus, he served as rabbi of several Eastern European Jewish communities and escaped to the United States in 1940 following the German occupation of Poland. In the U.S. he was an activist for the rescue of the millions of Jews trapped in Nazi-ruled Europe and in the Soviet Union. He arranged the successful transfer of the entire Mir yeshiva from Lithuania to Shanghai, providing for its support for five years, and obtaining visas and travel fare to bring all 250 students and faculty to America after World War II. He established the U.S. branch of the Mir in 1946. In the 1950s he aided North African and Syrian Jewish youth suffering from persecution and pogroms, and successfully lobbied for the passage of a bill granting "endangered refugee status" to Jewish emigrants from Arab lands.

Early life and education

He was born in the shtetl of Delyatichi (Dzialiacičy), Minsk province, Belarus, to Rabbi Aharon Aryeh Leib and Maita Kalmanowitz.Borchardt, Faygie. "Yeshivas Mir of Brooklyn Commemorates 50 Years Since the Passing of a Hero of ''Hatzalah''". ''Hamodia''; Features, December 5, 2013, pp. C2-C4, C11. His father was a Talmid Chacham and Rav of several European Jewish communities. His father exerted a major influence on his education. He studied at the Telshe yeshiva in Lithuania, and at age 16 entered the Eishishok yeshiva headed by Rabbi Zundel Hutner. At age 18, he progressed to the Slabodka yeshiva, where the Alter of Slabodka, Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, arranged for him to learn in ''chavrusa'' with his own son, Rabbi Moshe Finkel. Kalmanowitz received rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein of Slabodka, Rabbi Raphael Shapiro of Volozhin, Rabbi Eliezer Rabinowitz of Minsk, and Rabbi Eliyahu Baruch Kamai of the Mir.

Entering the rabbinate

In 1913, Kalmanowitz married Rochel the granddaughter of Betzalel Hakohen, a dayan (rabbinical court judge) in Vilna.Shapiro, Chaim. "The Last of His Kind: Rabbi Avraham Kalmanowitz", in ''The Torah World: A treasury of biographical sketches''. Rabbi Nisson Wolpin, ed. Mesorah Publications, Ltd., 1982, pp. 239–244. . In 1916 Kalmanowitz founded a Talmud Torah in Rakaŭ on the Polish-Russian border and, in 1918, a yeshiva.

Kalmanowitz became a central rabbinic figure and communal leader, working on behalf of refugees and Jews in difficult straits. In 1914, when Rakaŭ was flooded with thousands of refugees fleeing Russia with the outbreak of World War I, Kalmanowitz founded a rescue organization that furnished food and clothing. During the Bolshevik Revolution, he aided Jews arrested by the Bolsheviks and was subsequently arrested and imprisoned in Minsk. Later he assisted Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski in the running of the latter's Vaad Hayeshivos, which provided financial aid and support to European yeshivas and their students. In 1928 Kalmanowitz helped Grodzinski found a kollel in Vilna called Ateret Zvi, and served as rosh kollel (dean) for its first year of operation. Afterwards he helped move it to Otvosk, where it operated until 1934.

In 1926, Kalmanowitz was elected honorary president of the Mir yeshiva and began fund-raising for this institution in the United States. During the 1930s, he applied for and received U.S. citizenship and a passport.

In 1929, he accepted the position of Rav and ''av beis din'' (head of the rabbinical court) of Tykocin (Tiktin), and established a yeshiva in that town. He was also a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah (Council of Torah Sages) of the World Agudath Israel. He was forced to flee Tiktin for Bialystok after stopping a pogrom planned by local anti-Semitic elements, who slandered him to the local authorities.

Holocaust activism

With the outbreak of World War II, Kalmanowitz fled to Vilna along with thousands of other rabbis and yeshiva students. With the blessing of Rabbi Grodzinski, he used his U.S. passport to travel to New York via Sweden, arriving in April 1940. He immediately plunged into rescue work on behalf of the rabbis, rosh yeshivas, and yeshiva students still in Europe, calling on rabbinical and political contacts which he had established previously. In the winter of 1940 Kalmanowitz joined the Vaad Hatzalah (Rescue Committee) headed by Rabbi Eliezer Silver, and became a key figure in that organization. He was known as a tireless agent for rescue, bombarding government officials with letters and telegrams pleading for help for all Jews trapped in Nazi Europe as well as for those stranded in the Soviet Union. Even before the U.S. government approved the legality of sending "free currency" (''i.e.'', Swiss francs) into enemy-occupied territory for the purpose of supporting penniless refugees, Kalmanowitz sent money overseas, "ignoring illegalities and FBI threats of arrest".

Kalmanowitz openly worked on the Shabbat on several occasions in the name of ''pikuach nefesh'' (the Jewish principle of saving lives) by fund-raising in synagogues, filling out forms, and riding in taxis to government and institutional offices on Shabbat to obtain approvals and funds."A Cry From the Heart: Rabbi Avraham Kalmanowitz", in
To Save a World: Profiles of Holocaust Rescue
' by Dr. David Kranzler and Rabbi Eliezer Gevirtz. CIS Publishers, 1991, pp. 81–116. . The tall, regal-looking rabbi often broke down in tears and even fainted from emotion in front of government officials as he pleaded his cause. He successfully gained the support of U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. after crying uncontrollably in Morgenthau's office; Morgenthau helped him gain access to State Department officials. As Joseph J. Schwartz, chairman of the Joint's European Executive Council, told an interviewer, "There was a rabbi almanowitzwith a long white beard, who, when he cried, even the State Department listened". Kalmanowitz was one of the 350 rabbis who participated in the 1943 Rabbis March on Washington.

In the years following the war, Kalmanowitz joined Simon Wiesenthal and others in an effort to try and track down Nazi official Adolf Eichman