Iconic Williamsburg: Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz

By Y. S. Gold

He was a legendary figure in old Williamsburg—a builder of Torah in America like few others. Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, the menahel of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, earned the respect and the reverence of the Gedolim of America of yesteryear as well as the American Jewish community, which included in his many talmidim. 

How did an immigrant from Hungary make such an outsized impact in a barren America of yore? How did one man—who insisted on being called Mister Mendlowitz— succeed in blazing a trail of Torah chinuch in America which is felt until this very day? Perhaps his final words to his talmid, Rav Nesanel Quinn, are some indication: “heet up dos hohr vahr, guard the hairbreadth of truth within the yeshiva.”      

Hungary

Rav Shraga Feivel was born in the year 1886 to his parents, Rev Moshe and Sima Tcheba Mendlowitz. They resided in a town called Vilag, near the Hungarian-Polish border. Fatal fires were common in those days, and tragically, his mother perished in a fire on Yom Kippur in 1896, when young Shraga Feivel was only ten years of age. Reb Moshe remarried a woman named Toibe, who showered the family with love. 

After moving to another town, Rav Shraga Feivel left to learn in the great Torah centers of Hungary. He went to the Chuster Yeshiva, learning under Rav Moshe Greenwald, known as the Arugas HaBosem. He later enrolled in the legendary yeshiva in Unsdorf, under Rav Shmuel Rosenberg, known as the Be’er Shmuel. And finally—after receiving semicha in Unsdorf at the age of eighteen—he came to the great Pressburger Yeshiva where the Rosh Yeshiva was then Rav Simcha Bunim Schreiber, known as the Shevet Sofer. 

He married Rebbetzin Bluma Rochel, the daughter of Reb Shimon and Yehudis Schaller of Rymanów, Poland. 

From a young age, Rav Shraga Feivel had a dream of disseminating Torah, and he set his sights on the spiritually-barren land of America. 

Williamsburg

In 1913, he arrived in America alone, and Rav Shraga Feivel set out to brings his dreams to fruition. His plan was to build a yeshiva in America. He began his career of chinuch teaching in Scranton, founding a talmud Torah in the city, but he soon realized that in order to make a real impact, he would need to be fully independent. 

In 1921, his family came over, and they settled in the fledgling community of Williamsburg. There, he borrowed $10,000 and began publishing Dos Yiddishe Licht—a publication that had as its goal to awaken American Yidden from their spiritual-slumber. By 1923, he understood that it would be too difficult to open a yeshiva on his own, and he agreed to begin teaching the eighth grade in Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, which had been established in 1918.  

Soon, the position of menahel of the yeshiva became vacant, and Rav Shraga Feivel was asked to assume this position. He would remain at the yeshiva’s helm—shaping and guiding it and its thousands of talmidim—for the ensuing quarter century. 

Immediately, a new aura was felt throughout the yeshiva. He infused the Rebbeim with a spark of enthusiasm, and before long they recognized him for the natural pedagogue that he was. But he was not content with simply presiding over the yeshiva; he would build it into an empire of serious Torah learning with the greatest Torah scholars at its helm. 

Soon he realized that without a high school and a beis medrash where the talmidim could be raised into true bnei Torah, all the work and investment of the elementary years would be for nought. People scoffed at the idea, but in 1926, Rav Shraga Feivel persevered in bringing his dream to fruition. 

Fusing the Torah from the Lithuanian world together with a distinct spirit of chassidus, Rav Shraga Feivel shaped and molded the talmidim of Torah Vodaath until his passing on 3 Elul 1948. He was later reinterred in Eretz Yisroel. 

Much of the information in this article was drawn from “America’s Yeshiva,” published in honor of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath’s centennial celebration.