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Todays high school graduates take

their year in Eretz Yisrael for granted,


but a few decades ago the Jewish
Agency could barely fill the spots in
the two yeshivos under their auspices.
Rabbi Malle Galinsky zl changed
all that. He made sure all young Jews
could find their place to learn Torah
in the Holy Land, changing the face of
Orthodoxy in America
by Barbara Bensoussan
photos Family Archives

How
a trckle

Stream
became a

40 M I S H PAC H A

27 Sivan 5773 | June 5, 2013

M I S H PAC H A

41

He felt that
deciding on a
yeshivah is the
second-most
important decision
a person can
make, he made
it his business
to make sure the
parents were on
board, and that
the child got into
the right place for
him and thrived

There are certain movements that become so much a part of community


life we forget they ever had a beginning; we forget the brave, hardworking
pioneers who pushed them into common parlance. There was Chedva Silverfarb and lashon hara; there was Reb Yaakov Birnbaum and Soviet Jewry;
there was ArtScroll and the flourishing of English-language seforim.
And then theres the phenomenon of the Year in Israel. As I write these
words, I myself have two children in Israel, spending the year in yeshivah and
seminary respectively. But 40 years ago, hard as it may be to believe, it was a
rare individual who went to Eretz Yisrael after high school to learn. How did
a small trickle of American students venturing across the ocean turn into a
stream? How did the Israel year become a sort of life-stage migration as
inexorable as salmon swimming upriver to spawn?
Unknown to many in our community, Rabbi Malle (Mallen) Galinsky zl,
who passed away in April at the age of 77, was one of the foremost figures in
creating the custom of sending young people for a year of study. Hired by the
Jewish Agency in the late 1960s to expand study options for American students in Israel, he became a sort of master shadchan between American and
Israeli yeshivos. Personally unassuming and deeply dedicated to chinuch,
he helped create a movement that would profoundly affect generations of
Torah youth to come.

In His Fathers Shoes According to Rabbi Galinskys son, Rab-

bi Ephraim Galinsky, his fathers family history left him well placed to
interact with Jews of every stripe. My grandfather Yehuda Dov Galinsky came from Lita, from the town of Astryn near Grodno, which was
the home of Rav Shimon Shkop, he says. But he came as a young child
to the US, where he learned under Rav Simcha Soloveitchik (brother of
Rav Chaim) at Eitz Chaim Yeshivah.
Surprisingly, a shidduch was suggested between Yehuda Dov (a Litvack) and
the daughter of Rav Ephraim Zalman Halpern, a chassidic rav sent to Denver by Rav Yisroel of Tchortkov to serve the citys chassidic kehillos during
and after World War I (and perhaps best-known for establishing the Central
Committee for Taharas HaMishpachah after moving to Jerusalem in 1935
and building hundreds of mikvaos all over Eretz Yisrael).
After the couple married, Rabbi Yehuda Dov became the rav in Colchester,
Connecticut. He stayed there from 1931 to 1944, whereupon he was offered
the rabbinic position at Sharei Tzedek, a large congregation in Coney Island.
My father-in-law was recommended for the position on the condition that
he also open a yeshivah, recalls Mrs. Sonia Galinsky, Rabbi Malles wife. But
that wasnt an easy proposition: It was a time when most people were trying
hard to assimilate into American society rather than affirm their Jewishness,
and it was a middle-class and poor neighborhood. But he went from door to
door begging people for support, and succeeded in opening the yeshivah.

42 M I S H PAC H A

Rabbi Galinsky, the young rabbi with the booming voice


and radiant smile; at his wedding, flanked by RJJ Rosh
Yeshivah Rav Mendel Kravitz (to his right) and the
Kopycznitzer Rebbe, a beloved father figure; Coney
Islands Sharei Tzedek, before the neighborhood changed

27 Sivan 5773 | June 5, 2013

Rav Ephraim Zalman Halpern (L) and his sonin-law Rav Yehuda Dov Galinsky, rabbis in
the challenging world of Jewish Americana

In addition to his duties to the shul and yeshivah,


Rav Yehuda Dov Galinsky did a weekly Friday afternoon radio show in Yiddish on WEVD. WEVD
used to call itself the station that speaks your
language, recalls Professor Chaim Waxman,
a sociologist and friend of Rabbi Malle Galinsky.
Rabbi Galinsky was one of the pioneers of learning on the radio. Hed talk about the parshah, hed
tell stories. People would send donations to the
yeshivah lillui nishmas and hed announce each
one and personally thank the donors.
As a bochur, Malle learned in Rabeinu Yaakov
Yosef (RJJ) and he would later earn an MA in
Jewish education at Yeshiva University, and continue there for doctoral work. But Rabbi Yehuda
Dov Galinsky would not live to see his sons adult
achievements: in 1956, he suddenly passed away.
Malle, the second son, was barely 18. Over a twoyear period, my father prepared to take over the
shul, says Rabbi Ephraim Galinsky of his fathers
mission at such a young age. Malle initially shared
the leadership with his older brother yblcht Rabbi Moshe. But when Moshe Galinsky left to take
a position in Providence, Rhode Island, it was
young Rabbi Malle just 20 years old who
assumed leadership of his fathers shul and the
yeshivah as well.
Mrs. Reyna Hisiger, whose father was a close
friend of the young rabbi, remembers that her
family moved next door shortly after Rabbi Galinsky married Sonia and the young couple settled
in Coney Island, sharing a wall with them during
her teenage years. Coney Island was a small, tightknit community back then, she says, and Rabbi
Galinsky had a unique relationship with my father,
who eventually served as president of the shul.
Rabbi Galinsky continued his fathers Yiddish
radio show as a means of propagating Torah and
bringing in donations for the yeshivah, becoming

M I S H PAC H A

43

How A Trickle Became A Stream

Rabbi Galinsky was a man who lived his philosophy. With close friend Rabbi Zevulun Charlop (L); at a Russian Melaveh Malka with
refusenik Yuli Edelstein (C); with mechutan Rabbi Yehuda Paley zl
popular in his own right as a polished speaker
with an engaging personality. He was American, but he spoke an excellent Yiddish, his wife
Sonia says. Many people who listened were
convinced he was an elderly European rav.
Thousands of people at that time would
listen to his Friday shows, says his friend
Rabbi Zevulun Charlop, rav of Young Israel
of Mosholu Parkway and faculty member of
YU. He was also, by the way, an equally gifted
speaker in English, and spoke an exceptionally fine Hebrew.
Mrs. Hisiger, who used to help type announcements for Rabbi Galinskys radio show
as a college student, says people used to be so
thrilled to hear him announce their names
on the radio. He had a kind of fan club, she
says. People would call in with their family
news, and hed read it over the air.
It was in Coney Island that he received his
first on-the-job training in running yeshivah
dinners and fundraising. Rabbi Galinskys
famous wide smile, organizational gifts, and
winning personality made him well-loved
among his congregants and talmidim. A lot
of the people became frum because of Rabbi
Galinsky, Mrs. Hisiger says. Today, those
people have produced generations of frum
Jews that give us all a lot of nachas.
But the Coney Island shul did not endure;
the area declined precipitously in the 1970s,
as public high-rise housing projects changed
the character of the neighborhood. The shul
emptied out almost overnight, Sonia says.
We tried to hold on, but it wasnt meant to be.
Meanwhile, with the reawakening of Jewish pride following the 1967 Six Day War, the
Torah Department of the Jewish Agency began looking for someone to organize Jewish

44 M I S H PAC H A

Exile to a Place of Torah


As Professor Chaim Waxman notes in Flipping Out?
Myth or Fact: The Impact of the Year in Israel, the idea
of moving away to learn Torah dates as far back as Rabi
Nehorais injunction to exile yourself to a place of Torah in Pirkei Avos (4:18).
In the late 19th and early 20th century, the main centers of Torah learning were still in Europe, and American youth who desired the highest levels of yeshivah
learning would take themselves there. Among those
who famously made the journey were Rav Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg, Rabbi Avigdor Miller, and Rav Mordechai Gifter. Travel to Eretz Yisrael was more rare,
although Rabbi Behr Manischewitz, of matzoh fame,
sent his sons to learn in the Holy Land, with the first
departing at age ten in 1901.
During the time of the Hebron massacre in 1929,
about two dozen American students were among
those learning in Hebron yeshivah, Slabodka, and several of them were killed. Until the late 1950s, Professor Waxman writes, all such activity [learning
in Eretz Yisrael] was unorganized, on an individual basis, and on a very small scale.
In 1957, through the initiative of Rabbi Zevi Tabory of the Jewish Agency, a small number of
American students were sent to Yeshivat Kerem BYavneh (KBY), which later became the first
Hesder yeshivah. By 1969, close to 50 men and women had signed on for Israel study; the men
went to KBY or the newly established Beit Midrash LTorah (BMT), and the women went to Machon Gold. It was around that time that Rabbi Galinsky was hired to expand these options.
Historical factors obviously increased the facility of going to Eretz Yisrael to learn. Despite persistent threats of war or terrorism, overall security in the country increased, and in the latter half of
the 20th century travel by plane became cheaper and more common. By the 1970s, following the
miracles of the Six Day War and the attendant burst of pro-Israel feeling, many Americans were
inspired to visit.
By the 1980s and 90s the American Jewish community had become wealthier, and Israel itself
built rapidly from a developing nation to a high-tech, First World country that was a more comfortable place for Americans to stay. Even more importantly, the tremendous postwar growth
of the Orthodox community and yeshivah/day school system produced thousands of graduates
who desired an authentic, intensive yeshivah experience in the Holy Land.

study for young people in Israel, someone


who could bridge the Jewish Agency and the
yeshivah world. Rabbi Joshua Fishman, then
executive vice president of Torah Umesorah,
recommended Rabbi Malle Galinsky, who
was known as an oheiv Eretz Yisrael and oheiv
habriyos. As his friend Chaim Waxman puts
it, He was above categorizing people He
hated labels. A Jew was a Jew.

Save the Children Rabbi Dr. David


Eliach, the now-retired principal of Yeshivah of Flatbush High School, says that
the idea of sending young people to Eretz
Yisrael after graduation grew out of a
concern among himself and other Jewish
high school principals that their graduates
were dropping away from Judaism after
high school.
Most of the students would go off to college
when they finished high school, and 70 to 80
percent of them were not staying religious,
Rabbi Eliach says. Rabbi Simcha Teitelbaum
[from Yeshiva High School of Queens] and
myself discussed how we might keep these
kids, and we thought a year of study in Israel
might help.
Rabbi Yehoshua Bakst of the Ramaz school
joined them, and together they promoted a
Tochnit Yud-Bet program, in which seniors
who didnt want to go away for an entire year
would go to Israel in the second half of their
senior year. Its funny, muses Rabbi Eliach,
how the three of us pushing this idea Rabbi
Bakst, Rabbi Teitelbaum, and myself were
all born in Israel ourselves.
But it soon became clear they needed a facilitator, someone who could spearhead the
effort and make a broad range of shidduchim
between young people and yeshivah programs.
For this, they turned to Rabbi Galinsky, now
employed as the national associate director
of the Torah education department of the
Jewish Agency.
Their first attempts were stabs in the dark:
they sent some students to religious kibbutzim like Yavneh, while another bochur went
to Yeshivas Chevron. Eventually the Jewish
Agency itself opened Beit Midrash LTorah
(BMT) for men and Machon Gold for women.
27 Sivan 5773 | June 5, 2013

Rabbi Galinsky accumulated many a frequent-flyer mile visiting Israeli yeshivos and
working with them to accept American bochurim. One of his early partners was Rav
Nosson Kamenetsky, the son of Rav Yaakov
Kamenetsky and the rosh yeshivah of Yeshivas ITRI. He also worked with Rav Meir
Schlesinger of Yeshivat Shaalvim to create a
program especially for Americans, and later
brought Yeshivat Har Etzion and Yeshivat
Hakotel on board.
Despite the wave of pro-Israel sentiment at
the time, the Jewish Agencys early efforts met
with much resistance. They were all against
it the parents, the principals, even Yeshiva
University, Rabbi Eliach says. But why would
YU object? Because they hoped these young
men would go straight to them after high
school, he replies. But in the end, many of
those students came back and continued their
studies at YU anyway, and its because of those
returnees that the beis medrash there grew into
a thriving, serious beis medrash.
Rabbi Galinsky didnt simply make the
arrangements and sit back he followed up
with his unique, personal touch. He felt that
deciding on a yeshivah is the second-most
important decision a person can make, says
Rabbi Jay Marcus, who later took over Rabbi
Galinksys position. He made it his business
to make sure the parents were on board, and
that the child got into the right place for him
and thrived. He handled any malfunctions
that would arise.
In the early days, the Jewish Agency recruited mostly from Modern Orthodox yeshivah high schools, he continues. This was
before the baal teshuvah movement, before
going to Israel after high school became a
rite of passage. In those years, living in Israel
required a dramatic adjustment. Although
American students back then were used to
lower levels of comfort than students today,
they still had to get used to Israeli dorms and
showers, Israeli food, living away from home.
In those days, calling home was a rare
and expensive enterprise involving handfuls of phone tokens. Air conditioning was
undreamed of, and security less developed.
Some of the yeshivos were still situated near

How A Trickle Became A Stream

farmland, and as Rabbi Marcus quips, If the


wind blew the wrong way, you enjoyed the
smell of the farm.
But even today, with modern Israel better
supplied with creature comforts, Rabbi Marcus maintains that American young people
still benefit from witnessing firsthand Israeli
levels of mesirus nefesh that outstrip their own.
Whether its by serving in the army, or living
a lifestyle that doesnt include a two-car garage
and vacations, Israelis still model a higher
level of mesirus nefesh, he says. He adds that
these lengthy stays were and remain the best
argument in convincing Americans to make
aliyah; other experiences like Birthright tours
are too short to leave much impact. Out of everything the Jewish Agency has tried, spending
a year studying in Israel is still the best way of
persuading people to come live here, he says.
Rabbi Eliach maintains that the year in Israel
experience skillfully coordinated by Rabbi
Galinksy ultimately changed the entire face
of modern Orthodoxy. The participation in Israeli yeshivos significantly raised the spiritual
level of its participants: The kids would come
back having absorbed that there is such a thing
as halachah, that you have to daven three times
a day, that learning is valuable, he says. In his
opinion, launching the trend to send to Eretz
Yisrael which was subsequently adopted in
more chareidi circles as well was the most
successful achievement in Jewish education.
Simply providing them with the experience of
learning only limudei kodesh all day long was
inspiring for these students.

New Frontiers After some ten years


working with the Jewish Agency, opening
Torah study options ever wider to American students, Rabbi Galinsky received

what was a dream offer to a man who


loved the Holy Land: a yeshivah position
in Eretz Yisrael, to expand the program
for chutznikim at Shaalvim. The family
packed up in 1976, and Rabbi Galinsky became the head of the American program.
In fact, his efforts were so impressive that
the chutznik section of the yeshivah began to
outstrip the Israeli section. Always looking for
innovation, he initiated, along with Mr. Zev
Wolfson zl, the Shaal program. That program
trained serious yeshivah students from Israel
with a background in English, French, Spanish
to go out on shlichut, Sonia says. Then they
would be sent to communities in places like the
US, Portugal, France, Brazil places where its
difficult to find rabbanim. For over 17 years,
Shaal prepared young men for rabbinic posts,
providing training in halachah, hashkafah, even
public speaking and counseling.
Another program called Meretz was incorporated into Shaalvims five-year Hesder
program. It trained talmidim so that they were
able to receive recognized degrees through
the Ministry of Education and teach in Israeli schools.
One of Shaalvims staunchest supporters
and a close friend was Joseph Miller zl. He
was a lawyer, accountant, and OU askan who
was one of the passengers on Pan Am Flight
103, blown up in 1989 by terrorists over Lockerbie, Scotland. Reb Malle was devastated,
Professor Waxman remembers. He immediately flew to Scotland with Rabbi Shaya Lebor,
staying there for almost an entire week until
they were able to bring the kadosh Joseph Miller
to kevurah in Eretz Yisrael.
He showed the same type of dedication to
his students. Rabbi Kalman Feder, a former
talmid, remembers that once his grandmother

had asked him to go daven at the kever of her


great-grandfather before leaving Eretz Yisrael
on a trip home to the US. Rabbi Feder, then 18,
remembered that Har HaMenuchos wasnt far
from Givat Shaul, where Rabbi Galinsky lived,
and asked for his help getting to the kever. I
hadnt realized Har HaMenuchos is like a city,
and I had no idea where to go, he says. Rabbi
Galinsky drove me back to his house, where
we called my uncle, who was a friend of his,
and got directions. By the time we returned,
it was already dark.
Rabbi Galinsky was also responsible for the
fundraising portion of the yeshivah, a job that
wasnt easy. My husband used to say he wasnt
good at schnorring, Sonia says. He organized
functions in cities throughout the US, building
a network of supporters, and ran the annual
dinner. Nevertheless, he was successful by
dint of his sincerity and enthusiasm, and Sonia
says that because of his frequent traveling she
never sought to work outside the home. Somebody had to keep the home fires burning, she
says, referring to raising their seven children.

Undercover Rabbis In December


1983, while working at Shaalvim, Rabbi
Galinsky received an offer he couldnt refuse: the chance to visit the Soviet Union to
bring support and succor to Jewish refuseniks, accompanied by his old camp buddy Rabbi Sholom Gold, who had recently
made aliyah from West Hempstead.
After the Six Day War, Israel used to send
two people to the Soviet Union every six
months, to keep in touch with the dissidents,
Rabbi Gold explains. At the time it wasnt easy
to go. It was all done on the quiet; we were given
our instructions by Aryeh Kroll, who nobody
even talked about until recently. Kroll was a

man who had never set foot in those cities [he


made aliyah from Minsk as a child in 1935],
yet he could describe every street and byway
as if hed grown up there, and he knew all the
people.
Rabbis Galinsky and Gold had been approached because the Israeli government
needed rabbis with American citizenship
who could unlike Israelis enter the Soviet Union. They took a plane to London, then
changed planes and passports, Sonia Galinsky
remembers. The mission, with its secrecy and
potential danger, proceeded like an espionage
mission: the two were followed by government
surveillance wherever they went. Theyd been
sent equipped with valuable gifts to bring
their Jewish friends items that could be sold
to help feed people whod been cut off from all
sources of income.
It was a fascinating journey, Rabbi Gold
recalls. I remember a Melaveh Malkah we
had with Yudi Edelstein, in which he made
a siyum on Perek Chezkas Habatim in Bava
Basra. Edelstein spent two and a half years
in the gulag for having taught Hebrew. Today,
he lives in Israel and is the Speaker of the
Knesset. Another acquaintance from those
days, Rabbi Eliyahu Essas, spent his first Pesach after leaving the USSR in Shaalvim, and
now runs what he claims is the largest online
yeshivah in the world, catering to Russian
Jews. Many of their fellow refuseniks have
since immigrated to Israel and established
themselves there.
Rabbi Galinsky returned to Russia several
times after that, including trips with friend
Joe Miller to recruit talmidim for Shaalvim.
Later, when now-Judge Noach Dear and Shimon Kwestel contacted the OU with a request
to help the Jews of Kharkov, they called on
Rabbi Galinsky to ask for his assistance. That
became his pet project, Sonia says. They put
one person there in Kharkov year-round, then
would send others for six-month stints. It began as a program in which wed send students
from Shaalvim to give shiurim to university
students and eventually opened a high school.
Many of the Jews there, who had no exposure
to Yiddishkeit, have since come to Eretz Yisrael
and are now frum, ehrliche Yidden.

27 Sivan 5773 | June 5, 2013

No Retirement As the years went by,


Rabbi Galinsky became the go-to person
for people who wanted advice on how to
open a yeshivah, how to create programs,
and how to fund them. He also contributed his expertise by serving on the Board of
Lander College in Israel and on the board
of the Conference of Young Israel rabbis in
Israel .
Even after he was officially retired, Rabbi
Galinsky kept busy. He was a tremendous
talmid chacham who was always learning,
says Rabbi Gold. We used to say that paperback Gemaras were invented just for him he
would always have one with him at weddings,
so as not to lose any time.
Rabbi Galinsky would always speak upon
request, and often used the daf yomi as a springboard for his discourse. He had this booming
voice that could make the walls shake, says
his talmid Rabbi Feder. It might have even
seemed funny with someone else, but he was
so sincere; he would enunciate each word of
his shiur, repeating phrases for dramatic effect.
Even when he greeted someone, he would call
out their name enunciating every syllable, and
this made people feel very special.
In his last years, the Galinskys moved to the
Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem. Most of
his neighbors had no idea who he was and or
what hed accomplished; they knew him from
shul, as a person who loved to learn and related easily to everyone. When they came to the
levayah and heard all that hed accomplished,
they were amazed, Professor Waxman says.
Rabbi Galinsky actually lived his philosophy:
the man who encouraged others to try spending time in Eretz Yisrael moved there himself;
a master mechanech, many of his children
continue in his footsteps as educators. Rabbi
Feder remembers that once, in the Shaalvim
newsletter he produced regularly for the yeshivah community and supporters, he traced
every instance in Tanach in which the word
hineini appears, making the point that his
students should be ready to respond Hineini!
in any hour of need. But that described him,
Rabbi Feder says. And even his unusual name
Malle fit his persona: he lifted himself and
he uplifted all of us.

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