Over 1,000 people flocked to the Jewish Educational Center on January 2 to honor HaRav Pinchas Mordechai Teitz, zt”l, on his 21st yahrzeit. Rav Teitz was a renowned talmid chacham who changed the landscape of world Jewry through his visionary leadership and fidelity to halacha.

Alumni, students, parents and members of the Jewish community came out to hear from Rav Elazar Mayer Teitz and Rabbi Binyamin Blau about Rav P.M. Teitz, who founded the Jewish Educational Center 75 years ago as a model for yeshiva education in New Jersey.

At the time, there were no Jewish day schools in the state and Rav Teitz set the course for what was to follow. Within a few short years, the JEC grew to add its mesivta for boys. An innovator who strongly defended a Jewish girl’s right to an advanced Torah education, Rav Teitz sought to provide it for as many women as possible and founded the Bruriah High School for Girls. Now, decades later, Orthodox Jewry in New Jersey is flourishing, with dozens of yeshivot throughout the state.

Rav Teitz believed in engaging the world through the prism of Torah, and embraced modernity as a vehicle for advancing a Torah agenda and disseminating its learning. In addition to founding the JEC and helping others establish other places of learning, Rav Teitz pioneered the first Torah-oriented radio show, his weekly Daf Hashavua, which drew an incredible 250,000 listeners.

He was a dreamer and an innovator who served as the chief rabbi of Elizabeth and masterfully developed the city to include all of the religious amenities and services that the Jewish community continues to benefit from and build upon today. Many communities throughout North.

Rav Teitz looked beyond Elizabeth and North America, and led the effort to deliver Yiddishkeit to Jews trapped behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. He made an unparalleled over 20 trips to the Soviet Union during those perilous years, bringing siddurim, matzot, Torah publications and even arba minim for Sukkot to Jews trapped in Soviet Russia.

To commemorate his yahrtzeit on Monday, the JEC Lower School, RTMA and Bruriah held a system-wide yom iyun that included presentations from Rav Elazar Mayer Teitz and Rabbi Binyamin Blau.

Rabbi E.M. Teitz is the current Rav HaIr of Elizabeth and dean of the JEC. He is also the son of Rav Pinchas Mordechai Teitz, zt”l. Rav Teitz led a school-wide siyum on Masechet Brachot at an RTMA father-son learn-in and spoke in both high schools about his father’s vision and legacy.

A JEC graduate, Rabbi Binyamin Blau is the late Rav’s grandson and current rosh yeshiva of the Fuchs Mizrachi School, and rav of the Green Road Synagogue, both in Cleveland, Ohio. In a moving tribute to his grandfather, Rabbi Blau painted a sweeping mosaic of his accomplishments, traits and enduring lessons. Rabbi Blau also delivered an engaging shiur to Bruriah students, faculty and parents on “Finding the Right Path in Avodat Hashem.”

The Rav Teitz Mesivta Academy, which bears the late Rav Teitz zt”l’s name, held a special yom iyun with fathers, grandfathers and brothers joining students of the mesivta in learning toward a siyum on Masechet Brachot. The session culminated in the siyum on the masechta followed by singing, dancing and a gala breakfast.

At Bruriah, mothers joined their daughters and faculty at a yom iyun learn-in during which they heard from both Rav E. M. Teitz and Rabbi Blau, and then participated in breakout sessions where they explored Torah in different classes.

Rabbi Uzi Beer, principal of the JEC Lower School, presented memories of the Rav in two separate age-appropriate sessions. Rabbi Beer engaged students with participatory and project-based learning exercises that brought to life the Rav’s work from his earliest days in America when he assumed the rabbinical leadership of Elizabeth, through his building of the community, his activism on behalf of Soviet Jewry, and pioneering of Torah broadcasts on the radio. Students were mesmerized by the message and walked away with a newfound understanding and pride in their school that boasts such a rich history.

Students across all three divisions were inspired by the day and bolstered by the closing message that Rabbi Beer expressed to his students, that “the Torah that is being learned within the walls of the JEC ensures that the Torah of Rav Teitz, zt”l, and indeed his legacy, live on.”