26 Facts About Avraham Kalmanowitz

Avraham Kalmanowitz was an Orthodox rabbi and rosh yeshiva of the Mir yeshiva in Brooklyn, New York from 1946 to 1964.

Avraham Kalmanowitz arranged the successful transfer of the entire Mir yeshiva from Lithuania to Shanghai, providing for its support for five years, and obtaining visas and travel fare to bring all 250 students and faculty to America after World War II.

Avraham Kalmanowitz established the US branch of the Mir in 1946.

Avraham Kalmanowitz was born in the shtetl of Delyatichi, Minsk province, Belarus, to Rabbi Aharon Aryeh Leib and Maita Kalmanowitz.

Avraham Kalmanowitz's father was a Talmid Chacham and Rav of several European Jewish communities.

Avraham Kalmanowitz's father exerted a major influence on his education.

Avraham Kalmanowitz studied at the Telshe yeshiva in Lithuania, and at age 16 entered the Eishishok yeshiva headed by Rabbi Zundel Hutner.

In 1913, Avraham Kalmanowitz married Rochel the granddaughter of Betzalel Hakohen, a dayan in Vilna.

In 1916 Avraham Kalmanowitz founded a Talmud Torah in Rakau on the Polish-Russian border and, in 1918, a yeshiva.

Avraham Kalmanowitz became a central rabbinic figure and communal leader, working on behalf of refugees and Jews in difficult straits.

In 1914, when Rakau was flooded with thousands of refugees fleeing Russia with the outbreak of World War I, Avraham Kalmanowitz founded a rescue organization that furnished food and clothing.

In 1928 Avraham Kalmanowitz helped Grodzinski found a kollel in Vilna called Ateret Zvi, and served as rosh kollel for its first year of operation.

In 1926, Avraham Kalmanowitz was elected honorary president of the Mir yeshiva and began fund-raising for this institution in the United States.

Avraham Kalmanowitz was a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of the World Agudath Israel.

Avraham Kalmanowitz was forced to flee Tiktin for Bialystok after stopping a pogrom planned by local anti-Semitic elements, who slandered him to the local authorities.

Avraham Kalmanowitz immediately plunged into rescue work on behalf of the rabbis, rosh yeshivas, and yeshiva students still in Europe, calling on rabbinical and political contacts which he had established previously.

Avraham Kalmanowitz was known as a tireless agent for rescue, bombarding government officials with letters and telegrams pleading for help for all Jews trapped in Nazi Europe as well as for those stranded in the Soviet Union.

Avraham Kalmanowitz openly worked on the Shabbat on several occasions in the name of pikuach nefesh by fund-raising in synagogues, filling out forms, and riding in taxis to government and institutional offices on Shabbat to obtain approvals and funds.

Avraham Kalmanowitz successfully gained the support of US Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr.

Avraham Kalmanowitz was one of the 350 rabbis who participated in the 1943 Rabbis March on Washington.

At war's end, Avraham Kalmanowitz obtained visas and travel fare to bring all the Mir students and faculty by ship to San Francisco and by train to New York; the last Mir refugee left Shanghai in 1948.

In 1946, Avraham Kalmanowitz established a new branch of the Mir yeshiva in New York City with the help of Rabbi Yechezkel Kahane, father of Rabbi Meir Kahane.

Avraham Kalmanowitz's efforts led to the passage of a bill according "endangered refugee status" to Jews in Arab lands, paving the way for their immigration to the United States.

Avraham Kalmanowitz worked onsite to strengthen traditional Torah education among North African Jewish youth.

Avraham Kalmanowitz devised and pushed through a plan granting student visas to the Mir yeshiva in Brooklyn for North African Jewish teens and opened special sections in the yeshiva for them, even though the yeshiva's financial situation was dire.

Avraham Kalmanowitz was buried in the Sanhedria Cemetery in Jerusalem near the grave of his father.