Iconic Williamsburg: Rav Avraham Halevy Sochen

In 1931, Williamsburg welcomed an illustrious Lithuanian rov by the name of Rav Avrohom Sochen. He served as the spiritual leader of Adas Bnei Yisroel Shomrei Shabbos, a large shul on Marcy and Park Avenues. He authored several seforim and was known for his incredible oratory. 

Kėdainiai

Rav Avrohom was born in the town of Biržai (pronounced Birzh) in Lithuania in the year 1886 to his father, Reb Sholom Yehuda Halevi Sochen. The hamlet had its share of prominent rabbonim, but there does not seem to have been any advanced yeshivos, and it is also unknown where Avorhom learned in yeshiva, only that he amassed a sizable amount of Torah knowledge.  

Kėdainiai is one of the oldest cities in Lithuania. It is located 51 km north of Kovno on the banks of the Nevėžis River... and a short distance from Birzh. It was here that Rav Sochen arrived at the end of the 19th century, and married, Feige, the daughter of Reb Moshe Yitzchok Wallek, a Gemoro rebbi in the town for many decades. .

He, too, began as a melamed, but he had a hobby. Recalled his son, Dr. Mordechai Sochen, who served as a longtime educator in the Talmud Torah in Minneapolis. “Sermons. All my life I recall my father sitting in the evenings, poring over seforim and writing biblical commentaries. On Shabbos, between afternoon and evening prayers, he would preach in the synagogue with great success, before a large congregation. He cast a spell over his audience with his appearance, his voice, his intonation, and his words of Torah wisdom.”

This was a thread of his life that began in Keidan and continued in New York. 

After the decree arrived ordering that Jews be deported from Lithuania with the outbreak of World War I, the Sochen family wandered to distant Ukraine. There too, Rav Sochen was engaged, as usual, in religious matters; preaching everywhere he went, he gathered an admiring crowd that held him in high respect.

When they returned to Keidan following the war, the Sochen’s found an apartment “across the river” (Neviazhe), and there in the Shul, he served as rov, a ba’al darshan, and a maggid shiur to the people for no remuneration at all. He earned his livelihood as manager of the community office, which was a state institution during the period of Jewish autonomy in independent Lithuania. When they moved back into Keidan proper, he continued to give a droshoh in the Great Synagogue every Shabbos. He also gave shiurim in Gemara at the yeshiva founded by the illustrious rov of the town, Rav Shlomo Feinsilber, zt”l, Hy”d. 

Save Haven 

In 1925, Rav Avrohom decided to take the family to America, away from the chaos and the suffering in the aftermath of the war. Here he would serve as the rov congregations in New York until his passing in 1942.

At first he served as the rov of Congregation Yehuda and Yisroel at 32 Rutgers Street on the Lower East Side. Later he served at Congregation Ein Yaakov at Minford Place in the Bronx, and in 1931 he came to Williamsburg. 

As he did back home, he learned and taught.  

He left behind a number of hand-written religious manuscripts, two of which were edited and ready for publication, but were only brought to print by his descendants. One was published under the title “Derech Avraham,” a compilation of droshos on the weekly parshiyos and Yomim Tovim, , and works on the masechtos of Baba Kama, Baba Metzìa, and Baba Basra. The second manuscript was titled “Eshel Avraham” a 400-page volume on the Taryag Mitzvos, also handwritten.

In the introduction that he wrote during his lifetime he explained, “I named the sefer Derech Avraham, for, when I went in the ways of Torah for many years to orate every Shabbos before the holy congregations, I found scattered Midrashim written by ge’onim and great men, and it is not easy to find them together in one place... thus, I girded myself to take the quill in my hand and transcribe them. I toiled greatly, and with the sweat of my brow I gathered them together...” 

A Lasting Legacy 

The aforementioned Dr. Mordechai Sochen was married to Freida, the daughter of Rav Yehoshua Mereminsky, the rov of Mt. Vernon, New York. Her mother, Rebbetzin Rochel, was the daughter of Rav Aaron Kagan, the son of the Chofetz Chaim.  

He wrote of the travails of the Sochen family: 

“After leaving Keidan, our family scattered over four continents. My brother Yechiel, may he rest in peace, emigrated to Palestine in 1924, passed through all the pioneering phases and finally settled in Raanana, where he passed away in 1970. My sister Esther, may she rest in peace, remained in Lithuania and was murdered together with her husband and young son, by the hateful enemy, ym”sh. Their eldest son, Baruch Azgad, a war refugee, managed to make his way to Israel, where he served as director of the Nazareth Illit education department. My brother Shlomo went to South Africa, where he still resides. My sister Reizel and my mother and I came to America. My sister married Rabbi Ephraim Berman and raised a family of orthodox rabbis on American soil.” 

The aforementioned Rabbi Berman was a prominent rov who served in Williamsburg for decades as the rov of the shul on Sumner Avenue, long after the area had deteriorated. 

Through him, the rabbinic legacy of Rav Avrohom Halevi Sochen continues to this day, having endured through the decades in old Williamsburg.