“Certainly amongst the most influent leaders of post-war American Jewry was Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903–1993). He combined the posts of communal rabbi in Boston with that of Rosh Yeshiva of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University. However, these two posts, important as they were, are not truly reflective of his larger role in American Jewry. He was the guide and Halachic authority for a significant segment of American Jews who classified themselves as “modern” Orthodox. His great Talmudic brilliance coupled with his masterful oratory and gifted educational skills helped raise thousands of rabbis and laymen to the level of defenders of tradition and pioneers of Jewish accomplishment. A recognized philosopher and secular scholar, his role nevertheless was essentially to be the conduit for the great tradition of torah of his family and Eastern Europe to a modern world. He exemplified the tension inherent between the old Europe and the new America and the swirling controversies, impossible paradoxes and enormous possibilities that this tension created. His influence helped hold the line of demarcation between Orthodoxy and other interpretations of American Jewish life, was one of the founders of the Day School and yeshiva movements in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s and described a vision of the modern world and the new Jewish state that somehow reconciled itself with the ancient Jewish dreams of tradition and observance.”
Berel Wein, Triumph of Survival, p. 438.
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