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Nechama Polak expresses great emotion when speaking about the ever-present smile, the life lessons and joyful perspective on lifelong Torah learning that she has gleaned from her father, Rabbi Dr. Shimshon Isseroff. At age 99, Dr. Isseroff has dedicated his life to Jewish education for much of the past 70 years. He is one of the elder statesmen of the Talmud Torah movement in America.
This coming Sunday, May 10, during the first-ever digital USA Chidon HaTanach (Bible Quiz) finals, the event will officially be known by a new name: The Dr. Shimshon Isseroff Chidon HaTanach USA. The hundreds of young students who compete nationwide in this Tanach quiz-of-quizzes, including many from New York and New Jersey-area yeshivot, will now have the opportunity to learn about and appreciate one of its most illustrious founders.
Tanach, which is often used interchangeably with the word Bible, is an acronym composed of Torah (“Teaching,” also known as the Five Books of Moses, or the Pentateuch), Nevi’im (“Prophets”) and Ketuvim (“Writings”). It contains the canonical texts of the Hebrew Bible, which is made up of 24 books composed mainly in biblical Hebrew. Many chidon clubs at day schools and synagogues around the nation spend all year preparing their children, from sixth to 11th grade, for the qualifying exam. The U.S. finals of the Chidon contains both written and live components, and often includes the entirety of the Torah, plus selections or the entire books of the more esoteric texts of Yeshayahu (Isaiah), Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah), Yechezkel (Ezekiel), Tehillim (Psalms), Mishlei (Proverbs) and Iyov (Job).
The International Chidon HaTanach started as a televised adult competition in 1958. The immensely popular USA Chidon HaTanach has been run for youth since 1960. Since 1963, it has been a multinational project of the Jewish Agency. Over 30 countries send up to four winners, based on population, to Israel for the competition, for which they spend over a year preparing. The winners of the May 10 competition will compete next year in Israel on Yom Ha’atzmaut.
To illustrate the importance of the Chidon HaTanach as an Israeli cultural zeitgeist, one must look no further than David Ben-Gurion, who, as prime minister, made the following statement at the first Chidon, which had been his own idea of an ideal way to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the State of Israel. “There are three things that are truly one: Our land, the birthplace of the Jewish people; the “Book of Books,” from which we derive our uniqueness; and the third, and this is the most crucial—the Jewish people themselves. If we are successful in tying together the scattered Jews around the exile with our developing land through the spiritual knot—the Tanach—then we will endure forever!”
The Chidon was widely considered by Isseroff and other forward-thinking American Jewish educators as an intensive, hands-on way to teach Torah in a collaborative, welcoming and exciting environment. A member of the Metropolitan Council on Talmud Torah Education (later folded into the Bureau of Jewish Education, or BJE), and one of the first chairs of the Chidon HaTanach USA when the Jewish Agency launched it 57 years ago, Isseroff was also among the founders of Camp Morasha, in Lake Como, Pennsylvania, which was initially intended to include students of varied religious backgrounds so they could socialize and play sports, spending the summer in a religious environment.
In addition to being a Rashi scholar and academic in his own right, Isseroff is also deeply beloved as a longtime “teacher of teachers” at the TI (Teacher’s Institute) at Stern College, Yeshiva University and at other institutions. Isseroff now lives in Teaneck, New Jersey, near his daughter Nechama and son-in-law, Rabbi Israel “Tuly” Polak.
Dovi Nadel, the U.S. coordinator of the youth chidon, shared some of his thoughts on the naming of the Chidon in honor of Dr. Isseroff. “Over my five years running the USA Chidon HaTanach, some of my most cherished moments have been hearing from excited parents—and even grandparents—that the Chidon HaTanach has been in their family for generations.
“Entering its sixth decade, I can imagine nothing more appropriate than naming the USA Chidon HaTanach for one of its founders and most passionate champions. To name our program the Dr. Shimshon Isseroff USA Chidon HaTanach is to pay tribute to the essence of this program. This is a program that not only unites students around the country and the world, but it also unites generations through the study of Tanach.
“We are blessed to honor a tremendous educator such as Dr. Isseroff as we continue our mission of imbuing another generation of ‘Chidon students’ with a deep and enduring love of Tanach study,” said Nadel.
Born in Yerushalayim in 1920, Isseroff arrived at Ellis Island in 1923, at the age of 3, with his mother, intending to settle in the Boston area. The Ellis Island immigration personnel were disinclined to let them into the country because he was too young, but urgent phone calls were placed by the Bostoner Rebbe to then-Massachusetts’ U.S. Sen. David I. Walsh, who somehow was able to get the pair safely through immigration. They made their home in Brookline.
Isseroff was deeply influenced during his formative years by this storied community, heralded by two intellectual leading lights of Torah in America: the Bostoner Rebbe and the Rav, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. He was bicycle-riding buddies and a study partner with the Bostoner Rebbe’s son, and also spent his Motzei Shabbatot attending the Rav’s famous shiur. “Every Motzei Shabbat, he would go early to get a good seat in the front row of the Rav’s shiur,” recounted Polak.
“He went to public school in Boston, and learned to read Latin fluently. That’s where I feel his love of language was born. He was so taken with grammar and roots and stems. Every time he would learn a new word, he would want to conjugate it and learn everything about it. Then he moved on to Hebrew,” she said. “He has a real fascination with language and a love of Torah and Hebrew.”
Words were also something that helped Isseroff address a significant personal challenge. Struggling with a stutter as a child, he made copious notes of synonyms and alternate words, scribbling them in the margins of speeches for himself even in adulthood, to prevent stuttering in his frequent public speeches and presentations for the BJE. “He lost his fear by coming up with a plan. He overcame his stutter,” said Polak.
At 23, Isseroff received private semicha by Rabbi Mordechai Savitsky, and after his graduation from Boston University he moved to New York, raising his family in Borough Park. He obtained a master’s in education at Columbia University, before doing his PhD at NYU. “His doctoral thesis was on the use of visual aids in the classroom, which, if you think about it, was very modern for the time,” Polak explained. This was decades before the onset of educational television, when children had very little imagery to look at to assist their learning in school, long before eye-catching quizzes, like the Chidon, or other creative approaches, were present in pedagogical materials.
When the Youth Chidon HaTanach launched, Isseroff relished his active involvement. “The Chidon was not an outlier in my father’s life. It was an integral part of his life’s goals, which was the furtherance of Jewish education and love of Torah, and that encapsulates my father,” Polak shared.
Isseroff was the early author of many of the books that were used for context questions on the parshiot. Pedagogically, Isseroff felt that using workbooks and visual aids (targilonim), and the very clear “quiz style” method of questioning and answering, like during the Passover Seder, was immensely educational. “My father felt that this was truly the best way to carry on the mesorah of the Torah.”
“The Chidon was not for kids to show off what they do, but the preparation, the many questions and answers that would teach kids Torah, was the essence of the Chidon,” Polak explained.
“When I started out with the Chidon in 1980 at Shulamith High School, and during many BJE meetings, he became such a mentor to me,” wrote Rabbi Abraham Lieberman, a veteran teacher and Isseroff colleague. “A doll of a mentsch, his love of Tanach and the Hebrew language was catchy,” he said, expressing joy that the Chidon would be named in his honor.
In addition to the Chidon preparation books, teacher’s guides and learning aids, Isseroff also had a scholarly academic specialty. He published, between 1985 and 1994, books on Rashi’s grammatical explanations of the five books of the Chumash, plus Sefer Tehillim.
As if these pursuits didn’t keep him busy enough, Isseroff was intimately involved in many projects for educators through the Jewish Agency. “Beginning in 1957, my father started bringing educators, principals and teachers to Israel every summer, headquartered at Bar-Ilan. He continued working on these programs for the next 25 years. They would get credit toward their studies. It was his life to educate teachers about Israel and Hebrew language and literature,” she said.
Former Chidon champion Naomi Suberi Busani, who has been a Chidon coach at Yeshiva of Flatbush for more than 30 years, was thrilled to hear about Dr. Isseroff’s honor. “I was very fortunate many years ago to have him as a teacher in Yeshiva University’s Teachers Institute for Women, and as a mentor for many years later. He was always, both in and out of class, a kind and caring individual and a master educator.”
Isseroff taught for many years in many settings, and many current teachers considered him among their favorites. But for Polak, perhaps his most powerful role was combined as an educator and loving father. “He always has a smile. He is a very gentle person. He would always tell me life is like climbing a mountain. If you don’t enjoy climbing up, you don’t enjoy life,” recalled Polak.
By Elizabeth Kratz
