(Courtesy of YI of Kew Garden Hills) On Sunday June 6 at 1 p.m. Easterm time (8 p.m. in Israel), the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills will hold a virtual memorial tribute to its founding rabbi, Rabbi Fabian Schonfeld, z”l, who passed away in December 2020.
Rabbi Schonfeld, an erudite man who was at home in many worlds and known around the world, built the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills from a minyan in the basement of the Saperstein home into a bustling shul with multiple minyanim. He built Kew Gardens Hills into a center of Orthodox Jewish life and insured the viability of Jewish life in Queens by founding the Vaad Harabonim of Queens.
Despite his involvement in local, national and world affairs, he had a close relationship with each of his congregants. Many people, now parents and grandparents, remember the post cards he sent them at camp or the calls he made while they were learning in Israel. He never failed to visit his congregants in the hospital, and awed the patients sharing their rooms when he went over to their beds to speak with them about their illnesses and problems.
Rabbi Mordecai Willig will be the keynote speaker at the tribute. Rabbi Willig, who grew up in the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills and was a leader of its youth minyan, is Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Dr. Sol Roth Professor of Talmud and Contemporary Halachah and is the spiritual leader of the Young Israel of Riverdale in the Bronx. He is also the deputy av beis din of the Beth Din of America and the author of “Am Mordechai” as well as many articles in Torah scholarship journals. R
The June 6 memorial will be the first stage of the Young Israel’s tribute to its founder. In the late fall, in conjunction with Rabbi Schonfeld’s first yahrzeit, a memorial tribute book featuring personal memories, stories and photographs of Rabbi Schonfeld will be published. Anyone who has stories or photographs to share is welcome to send them to
[email protected]
Anyone who would like to be a sponsor of the tribute, may contact Rabbi Stuart Verstandig ([email protected]) or Rebecca Wittert ([email protected]) for details.
