Rabbi Eliezer Silver was the President of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada and among American Jewry's foremost religious leaders. He helped save many thousands of Jews in the Second World War and held several Rabbinical positions in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 and Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

.

Biography

Rabbi Silver was born in Obeliai

Obeliai

Obeliai is a small city in the Rokiškis district municipality of Panevėžys County, Lithuania. At the foot of the town is one of the area's many lakes....

, Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

, one of two sons of Rabbi Bunim Tzemach (1844–1917) and Malka Silver. He had centuries-old rabbinic ancestry.
He studied in Daugavpils

Daugavpils

Daugavpils is a city in southeastern Latvia, located on the banks of the Daugava River, from which the city gets its name. Daugavpils literally means "Daugava Castle". With a population of over 100,000, it is the second largest city in the country after the capital Riga, which is located some...

, with Rabbi Yosef Rosen (the "Rogatchover Gaon") and received Semicha

Semicha

, also , or is derived from a Hebrew word which means to "rely on" or "to be authorized". It generally refers to the ordination of a rabbi within Judaism. In this sense it is the "transmission" of rabbinic authority to give advice or judgment in Jewish law...

 from Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski

Chaim Ozer Grodzinski

Chaim Ozer Grodzinski was a pre-eminent Av beis din , posek , and Talmudic scholar in Vilnius, Lithuania in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...

 in 1906. He immigrated to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 with his wife in 1907, to escape the anti-Semitism of Czarist Russia

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

. They settled in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, where Rabbi Silver worked as a garment salesman and later sold insurance.

However, Rabbi Silver soon accepted a Rabbinical position in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Harrisburg is the capital of Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 49,528, making it the ninth largest city in Pennsylvania...

. His Torah scholarship soon drew him into leading Orthodox

Orthodox Judaism

Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...

 circles on the national level. In 1912, he was part of a delegation of rabbis that asked President William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States...

 to void a treaty with Russia because of Russia's persecution of Jews.

Rabbi Silver was active in relief efforts in World War I. In 1925 he moved to Springfield, Massachusetts. Around 1931, he accepted an invitation to become Rabbi in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he remained until his passing. While in Cincinnati, he caused much controversy when he established the Vaad Hoir of Cincinnati. The most prominent opponent of the Vaad was Rabbi Bezalel Epstein, who "already had his own kashrut supervision and who viewed Rabbi Silver's activities as encroachment."

Rabbi Silver was very active in the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada, elected its president in 1929. He was also a pivotal founder, organizer, and president of Agudath Israel of America

Agudath Israel of America

Agudath Israel of America , is a Haredi Jewish communal organization in the United States loosely affiliated with the international World Agudath Israel.-Functions:...

.

Rabbi Silver was also a close friend and colleague of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, and had a great deal of correspondence with him and later his successor, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

World War II rescue activities

Rabbi Silver convened an emergency meeting in November 1939 in New York City, where the Vaad Hatzalah

Vaad Hatzalah

Vaad Hatzalah was an organization to rescue Jews in Europe from the Holocaust.It was founded in November 1939 by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada...

 (Rescue Committee), was formed, with Rabbi Silver as president. Rabbi Silver spearheaded its efforts in rescuing as many European Torah scholars as possible from Nazi Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

.

Rabbi Silver launched a fund-raising drive that raised more than $5 million, and also capitalised on an exemption to US immigration quotas

Emergency Quota Act

The Emergency Quota Act, also known as the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921, the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, the Per Centum Law, and the Johnson Quota Act restricted immigration into the United States...

 allowing entry to ministers or religious students. At his direction, synagogues in Cincinnati and across the country sent contracts to rabbis, thereby securing 2,000 emergency visas that were telegraphed to Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

.

With the increasingly desperate race against time, the Vaad, under Rabbi Silver turned to all channels, whether legal or not, to save as many lives as possible by bringing Jews to the US, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 and Palestine.

During WWII, a Vaad representative in Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 even negotiated with the SS, offering to ransom concentration camp prisoners for cash and tractors - talks that freed hundreds from Bergen-Belsen

Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle...

 and other death camps.

In October 1943, as the scale of Nazi atrocities was becoming clearer, Rabbi Silver helped organise and lead a mass rally of more than 400 rabbis in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 to press for more decisive action by the US government to save European Jews. The rabbis' march was organized by Hillel Kook

Hillel Kook

Hillel Kook , also known as Peter Bergson , was a Revisionist Zionist activist, politician, and prominent member of the Irgun.-Early life:...

's "Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe".

Post-World War II

After the war, when the full extent of the Nazi atrocities came to light, Rabbi Silver began planning for reconstruction. In 1946, he distributed relief funds and helped expedite visas to Jews in eight European nations - wearing, with government permission, a US Army uniform for extra protection in areas where anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism

Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...

 was still rife. When donations were insufficient, Rabbi Silver often spent his own money to meet refugees' needs.

In the post-war years, when Rabbi Silver helped many Jews escape the Communist countries of Europe behind the Iron Curtain

Iron Curtain

The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...

, he personally guaranteed countless loans - many of which he had to repay himself.

In 1949 he founded the Chofetz Chaim Day School (also known as the Cincinnati Hebrew Day School.) Rabbi Silver died in 1968, at the age of 85 or 86. He was interred at Washington Cemetery (Knesseth Israel) in Cincinnati. He had been Rabbi of the Kneseth Israel Congregation in Cincinnati for nearly 40 years. In 2009, the congregation changed its name to Congregation Zichron Eliezer in honor of Rabbi Silver. He authored the Sefer

Sefer (Hebrew)

Sefer in simple Hebrew is a word that means any kind of "book" It is derived from the same Hebrew root-word as sofer , sifriyah and safrut ....

titled Anfe Erez.

External links

• He Saved Thousands, ou.org