The rabbi dreamed of creating religious, committed Jews throughout the United States. Having an elementary and high school Torah learning program was not enough, so he enlarged the school to include a post graduate program. He founded America’s first post graduate yeshiva, Beit Midrash Elyon, in an unknown town called in Spring Valley (today a flourishing ultra-Orthodox community) where students could continue their religious learning.
Although devote to Torah Vodaas, he also assisted in the founding of several other similar institutions such as Telz Yeshiva, Mesivta Chaim Berlin and Beis Medrash Gehova (Lakewood Yeshiva) and encouraged his own students to learn in these fledgling yeshivas. Today, these institutions play a very important role in 21st century American Orthodoxy.
And in order to continue learning into the summer, he founded the first Jewish day camp, Camp Mesifta, where boys could both learn and relax during the hot summer months.
Perhaps his most remarkable achievement was the establishment of Torah Umesorah, (in 1944), an organization whose goal was the establishment of Jewish day schools in every American city or town with over 500 Jewish families.
Leaving an indelible mark on Orthodox Jewry in America, Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz passed away in 1948. In the words of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein: “Were it not for him, there would be no Torah study and no Fear of Heaven at all in America”.
To visit the following websites click the HELP button at the top right above:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shraga_Feivel_Mendlowitz
- http://chareidi.shemayisrael.com/archives5759/kisovo/features.html
- http://jewishbreakingnews.blogspot.com/2007/05/jewish-press-my-machberes.html
- http://theantitzemach.blogspot.com/2005/06/blog-post_20.html
- http://www.jpi.org/holocaust/hlchp8a.html
- http://www.answers.com/topic/shraga-feivel-mendlowitz
- Encyclopedia Judaica
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