28 Facts About Sholom Rivkin

Rabbi Sholom Rivkin was an Israeli-born American rabbi.

Sholom Rivkin was the last Chief Rabbi of St Louis, Missouri, and the last chief rabbi of one of only a few cities in the United States that has ever had a chief rabbi.

Sholom Rivkin held the post of Chief Rabbi from 1983 until 2005 and was Chief Rabbi Emeritus until his death in 2011.

Sholom Rivkin was a chief judge on the Beth Din of the Rabbinical Council of America, and head of the Vaad Hoeir of St Louis, the governing body of the St Louis Orthodox Jewish community.

Sholom Rivkin was an expert in Jewish law, especially family and divorce law, and was consulted by rabbis and rabbinical courts around the world.

Sholom Rivkin was born June 6,1926, at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.

Sholom Rivkin's father was Rabbi Moshe Ber Rivkin, a protege and beloved chasid of Rabbi Sholom Dovber Schneersohn, the fifth Rebbe of the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic movement.

Sholom Rivkin's mother was Nacha Rivkin of Kalisz, Poland.

In 1924, Moshe Ber Rivkin was sent by the Rashab to Palestine to be the dean of a rabbinical school, the Yeshivas Toras Emes in Jerusalem, where their son, Sholom, was born.

Sholom Rivkin's mother was one of the founders of the Shulamith School for Girls in Borough Park, Brooklyn, the first girls' yeshiva in the United States.

Sholom Rivkin became a renowned Hebrew textbook author and Jewish educator, championing day school education for Orthodox Jewish girls.

Sholom Rivkin became a rabbinical scholar at the Yeshiva Torah Vodaath and Beth Medrash Elyon and was an exemplary student of Rabbis Shlomo Heiman and Reuvain Grozovsky.

Sholom Rivkin received his rabbinic ordination at Yeshiva Torah Vodaath.

In 1947, at age 21, Sholom Rivkin was appointed a rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin school in Brooklyn.

However, in 1949, at the encouragement of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, Sholom Rivkin moved to St Louis, Missouri, to become the rabbi of the Nusach Ha'Ari congregation.

Sholom Rivkin became the Jewish chaplain at the Veterans Administration Hospital at Jefferson Barracks and an administrator and counselor at Epstein Hebrew Academy.

In 1959, the family moved to Seattle, where Sholom Rivkin became the rabbi of Congregation Bikur Cholim.

Rabbi Sholom Rivkin was known for his compassion and sensitivity in dealing with often sensitive issues.

Sholom Rivkin was a renowned expert in halakha, and an international authority on Jewish divorce law.

Sholom Rivkin traveled to the Soviet Union to perform Jewish religious divorces.

Sholom Rivkin was often at the forefront of dealing with new issues in the area of Jewish family law.

Sholom Rivkin was the final arbiter of all cases of Jewish law of the Rabbinical Court, and both his scholarship and care for others were noted as hallmarks of his term of office.

In 2005, Sholom Rivkin retired as Chief Rabbi due to ill health and he was named Chief Rabbi Emeritus.

The institution of Chief Rabbi was rare in the United States and existed only in a few US cities; St Louis was the last city in which a chief rabbi led the Orthodox Jewish community, and Sholom Rivkin was thus the last chief rabbi of a city in the United States.

Sholom Rivkin was an advocate for women and a co-founder of the Jewish Council Against Family Violence.

Sholom Rivkin was a community leader, serving as a member of the board of directors of the Jewish Federation of St Louis, the board and advisory committee of the St Louis Jewish Light, and as a driving force behind the renovation of the community mikveh.

Sholom Rivkin died on October 1,2011, of complications from Parkinson's disease.

Sholom Rivkin was buried next to his wife, parents and grandparents at the Mount of Olives Cemetery in Jerusalem.