[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 63 (Monday, May 18, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S5028]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    IN MEMORY OF RABBI MOSHE SHERER

 Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to share with the Senate 
the sorrowful news that Rabbi Moshe Sherer, one of American Jewry's 
leading communal leaders, passed away yesterday afternoon at the age of 
76. Rabbi Sherer was the President of Agudath Israel of America for 
over 30 years and has served as a reasoned, wise voice whose counsel 
was widely respected in the Yeshivot of his beloved Brooklyn and the 
halls of government in lower Manhattan, Albany, Washington, and 
Jerusalem.
  I first met Rabbi Sherer in the early days of the Kennedy 
Administration when he came to Washington on behalf of Aguduth Israel. 
I quickly learned to admire his sagacity and rely on his insightful 
counsel and abiding integrity. For over thirty-five years he was a 
treasured mentor and a trusted friend.
  World Jewry has lost one of its wisest statesmen. American Orthodoxy 
has lost a primary architect of its remarkable postwar resurgence. All 
New Yorkers have lost a man of rare spiritual gifts and exceptional 
creative vision.
  While the Senate convenes today, tens of thousands of Jews are 
gathering in Brooklyn, New York to bid a reverential farewell to this 
exceptional teacher and rare leader. New York's Governor George Pataki, 
New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and New York City Council Speaker 
Peter Vallone are among the distinguished public officials 
participating in the funeral.
  Rabbi Sherer passed away only hours before the President of the 
Senate, Vice President Al Gore, addressed Agudath Israel's 76th 
anniversary dinner in New York. He spoke for the Senate and for all 
Americans when he eulogized the Rabbi as ``a remarkable force for the 
understanding and respect and growth of Orthodox Jewry over the past 
fifty years'', whose ``contributions to spreading religious freedom and 
understanding have been truly indispensable in defending and expanding 
those same rights for all Americans in all faiths.''
  I know I speak for the entire Senate when I express my condolences to 
his widow Deborah, his loving children Mrs. Rachel Langer, Mrs. Elky 
Goldschmidt and Rabbi Shimshon Sherer, his bereaved colleagues at 
Agudath Israel, and all who mourn the loss of this unusual man of 
conscience and conviction.
  I ask that a brief obituary of Rabbi Sherer, as prepared by Agudath 
Israel, be printed in the Record.
  The obituary follows:

       Rabbi Moshe Sherer, 76, widely acknowledged as the elder 
     statesman of the American Orthodox Jewish community, was a 
     leader of Agudath Israel of America, a major national Jewish 
     Orthodox organization, for over half a century, including 
     more than thirty years as the organization's president. He 
     also was appointed in 1980 as chairman of the Agudath Israel 
     World Organization, an international confederation of Agudath 
     Israel organizations in a host of countries around the globe.
       A prime catalyst of the American Orthodox Jewish 
     community's remarkable growth in size and strength since the 
     Holocaust, the American-born Rabbi Sherer empowered the 
     evolution of an organization that one member of the Jewish 
     establishment in 1941 called ``a sickly weed'' into a major 
     and effective force on the American political and communal 
     scene. He took Agudath Israel from a small group of activists 
     to a formidable movement--with tens of thousands of members 
     and supporters; branches across the country; and a Washington 
     office that advocates for a host of issues of concern to the 
     American Orthodox Jewish community, from religious rights to 
     moral matters, from nonpublic education to the welfare of 
     Jews in lands of oppression. He also helped establish Agudath 
     Israel's celebrated Jewish youth groups and summer camps, and 
     pioneered the organization's current role as a leading force 
     in the provision of social and educational services in the 
     New York area.
       Rabbi Sherer's earliest work on behalf of the Jewish 
     community--the efforts that first evoked the larger non-
     Orthodox Jewish establishment's opprobrium--was the 
     grassroots, and largely illegal, organization and transport 
     of food shipments to starving Jews in Nazi-occupied Eastern 
     Europe in 1941. His efforts also produced affidavits for 
     European Jewish refugees that helped them immigrate to the 
     United States.
       After the end of World War II, he and Agudath Israel 
     continued to assist European Jews--survivors interned in 
     Displaced Person camps--with foodstuffs and religious items, 
     and helped facilitate the immigration and resettlement of 
     Jewish refugees on these shores. In ensuing decades, Rabbi 
     Sherer spearheaded Agudath Israel's efforts on behalf of 
     endangered Jews behind the Iron Curtain and in places like 
     Syria and Iran. In 1991, years of clandestine activity on 
     behalf of Soviet Jews culminated in his establishment of an 
     office in Moscow to coordinate Agudath Israel's activities in 
     Russia. Under his leadership, Agudath Israel also played an 
     important role in providing social welfare and educational 
     assistance to Israeli Jews, and in advocating for Israel's 
     security needs.
       Ignoring the pessimistic predictions about Orthodox Jewry 
     made by sociologists and demographic experts in the 40s and 
     50s, Rabbi Sherer went on to help engineer a remarkable 
     change in the scope, image and influence of the American 
     Orthodox Jewish world. A staunch advocate of Jewish religious 
     education as early as the 1960s, he helped establish the 
     principle in numerous federal laws--like the Elementary and 
     Secondary Education Act of 1965--and state laws that, to the 
     full extent constitutionally permissible, children in non-
     public schools were entitled to governmental benefits and 
     services on an equitable basis with their public school 
     counterparts. He thereby allied himself with Catholic school 
     advocates and again rankled the larger American Jewish 
     establishment. In 1972, his efforts on behalf of education 
     led to his being named national chairman of a multi-faith 
     coalition of leaders representing the 5 million non-public 
     school children in the United States.
       Under his leadership, Agudath Israel helped foster the 
     phenomenal growth of Jewish adult education as well. This 
     past September, the Agudath Israel-sponsored celebration of 
     the most recent completion of the ``Daf Yomi'' page-a-day 
     Talmud study program drew over 70,000 Jews to central 
     locations nationwide.

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