[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 65 (Wednesday, May 20, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5241-S5242]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTE TO RABBI MOSHE SHERER

 Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I regret to inform my colleagues 
in the Senate of the death on Sunday, May 17 of Rabbi Moshe Sherer, 
President of Agudath Israel of America, a vibrant

[[Page S5242]]

organization of Orthodox Jews in our country.
  I was privileged to have known Rabbi Sherer for many years and to 
benefit from his wise counsel. He lived an extraordinarily righteous 
and productive life, and was a kindly but driving force in the 
unprecedented growth of his organization and its perspective within 
America. Rabbi Sherer was also a very successful bridgebuilder to other 
faith communities in his effort to spread the light of religious truth 
throughout our country.
  I shall miss Rabbi Sherer, and wish to extend to his wife, Deborah, 
and his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren my condolences 
and best wishes.
  Mr. President, I ask that the full text of two articles from the New 
York Times of May 19, 1998 be printed in the Record. The first 
describes Rabbi Sherer's remarkable life, and the second the effect of 
his death on the more than 20,000 people who came to his funeral in New 
York two days ago.
  The articles follow:

                [From the New York Times, May 19, 1998]

 Rabbi Moshe Sherer, 76, Who Contributed to Rise of Orthodoxy's Right 
                              Wing in U.S.

                          (By Gustav Niebuhr)

       Rabbi Moshe Sherer, who built a relatively small Orthodox 
     Jewish organization, Agudath Israel of America, into a 
     politically and religiously influential force among American 
     Jewish groups, died Sunday afternoon in Manhattan. He was 76 
     and lived in Brooklyn.
       He died after an illness of several months, a spokesman for 
     the group said.
       Rabbi Sherer had served since 1963 as president of Agudath 
     Israel of America, an educational and social service 
     organization that also represents hundreds of Orthodox 
     religious schools, or yeshivas in the United States and 
     Canada.
       Through his work at Agudath Israel, Rabbi Sherer played a 
     leading role in the rise of Orthodox Judaism's right wing, 
     which has gained in influence and self-confidence since the 
     1960's, at the expense of Orthodoxy's more moderate wing.
       That shift seemed unlikely when Rabbi Sherer joined Agudath 
     Israel as its executive vice president in 1941, when it was a 
     small group with few employees. In an interview last year, he 
     said some people warned him that Agudath Israel's rigorously 
     traditional Orthodox approach had little future in America. 
     But, he said, ``it's a growth stock today.''
       Sociologists say that Orthodoxy's strict traditionalists 
     have benefited from charismatic leadership, a high birthrate 
     and anxiety among many Orthodox Jews over signs of moral 
     turmoil in society.
       Today, Agudath Israel, with headquarters at 84 William St., 
     Manhattan, has branches throughout the country and a 
     Washington office that lobbies the government on religious 
     issues. It belongs to the Agudath Israel World Organization, 
     of which Rabbi Sherer was appointed chairman in 1980. In 
     Israel, it is associated with the strictly Orthodox United 
     Torah Judaism Party, a member of the governing coalition.
       Among Agudath Israel's earliest projects under Rabbi 
     Sherer's leadership was sending food shipments to Jews in 
     Nazi-dominated Eastern Europe and producing affidavits to 
     help refugees immigrate to the United States. After World War 
     II, the organization shipped food and religious articles to 
     Jews in displaced persons camps and assisted those who wanted 
     to immigrate.
       With Agudath Israel's constituency of religious schools, 
     Rabbi Sherer served a world that prizes scholarship. Born in 
     Brooklyn on June 8, 1921, he was educated at Torah Vodath, a 
     Brooklyn yeshiva, and Ner Israel rabbinical college in 
     Baltimore. He told associates that his main mentor was the 
     late Rabbi Aharon Kotler, who founded a highly  regarded 
     yeshiva in Lakewood, N.J.
       Yet Rabbi Sherer was known as an organizer rather than an 
     intellectual, with diplomatic and political skills that 
     enabled him to forge coalitions within the decentralized and 
     contentious world of Orthodox Judaism, and with other 
     religious groups.
       ``He was able to take disparate groups, bring them together 
     and get them to cooperate in the areas where they would 
     agree,'' said Rabbi Nosson Scherman, general editor of 
     Artscroll, a major publisher of Jewish texts.
       Rabbi Steven M. Dworken, executive vice president of the 
     Rabbinical Council of America, which represents about 1,000 
     Orthodox rabbis, said Rabbi Sherer ``was responsible in many, 
     many ways for placing Agudath Israel on the map.''
       As the most strictly observant of the Orthodox community 
     became more visible and organized politicians took note. In 
     January 1994, Rabbi Sherer delivered the invocation at the 
     first inauguration of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuilani of New York. 
     Vice President Al Gore was the speaker at the organization's 
     76th annual dinner, held in New York the day Rabbi Sherer 
     died.
       But the organization was also considered important earlier. 
     When The New York Times described the growing influence of 
     local religious groups in a 1974 article, it quoted Rabbi 
     Sherer as saying about Agudath Israel, ``There is hardly a 
     legislator from any Jewish neighborhood in the city who does 
     not know how we stand on issues that concern us and how 
     thorough we are about informing our constituents about 
     positions the legislators take on these issues.''
       Still, he did not have the visibility of some of his 
     counterparts at other Jewish organizations. ``He wasn't a 
     headline-maker.'' said Samuel C. Heilman, professor of Jewish 
     studies and sociology at the Graduate School of the City 
     University of New York. Instead, Professor Heilman said, 
     Rabbi Sherer worked quietly ``to keep the channels of 
     communication open'' between Agudath Israel and other Jewish 
     organizations.
       What helped is that Agudath Israel reached out to the 
     entire Jewish community with its programs promoting Jewish 
     identity and learning. Last September, for example, the 
     organization sponsored a celebration for men who had 
     completed a seven-year program of reading the entire Talmud, 
     the Jewish civil and religious law, at the rate of a page a 
     day. An estimated 70,000 people participated, filling Madison 
     Square Garden and other arenas.
       Rabbi Sherer sometimes took positions at odds with non-
     Orthodox organizations. He supported aid by Federal and state 
     governments to religious schools, a stand that placed his 
     organization on the same side of that issue as the Roman 
     Catholic Church but nettled some Jewish groups that supported 
     a strict separation of church and state.
       Testifying before Congress on this issue in 1961, he said, 
     ``Classical Judaism has, from the very inception of the 
     Jewish people, placed religious education in sharp focus as 
     the centrality of life itself.''
       More recently, he helped lead an effort to counter attempts 
     by Reform and Conservative Jews to gain official recognition 
     of non-Orthodox rabbis in Israel. Last November, he announced 
     that Agudath Israel would spend $2 million for newspaper 
     advertisements to promote the view that within Israel, 
     conversions and other rites should remain under Orthodox 
     control.
       Agudath Israel's spokesman, Rabbi Avi Shafran, said Rabbi 
     Sherer's stand stemmed from the conviction that ``the only 
     unifying force for the Jewish people is the Jewish religious 
     heritage.''
       Rabbi Sherer is survived by his wife, the former Deborah 
     Portman; two daughters, Rochel Langer of Monsey, N.Y., and 
     Elky Goldschmidt of Brooklyn; a son, Rabbi Shimshon Sherer of 
     Brooklyn, and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
                                  ____


                  Borough Park Mourns Jewish Luminary

                        (By Garry Pierre-Pierre)

       The armada of yellow buses that usually clog the narrow 
     streets of Borough Park, Brooklyn, shuttling students from 
     yeshivas to their homes, was nowhere in sight yesterday. 
     Instead, the streets were filled with thousands of people 
     mourning the death of Rabbi Moshe Sherer, whom many 
     considered the elder statesman of the American Orthodox 
     Jewish community.
       The mourners crowded the streets, stood on rooftops and sat 
     in their living rooms to listen to eulogies, broadcast 
     throughout the neighborhood by loudspeaker, for a man known 
     for his tireless efforts to unite Jewish sects and to reach 
     out to the secular world.
       Within hours of his death on Sunday afternoon, his 
     followers had begun gathering on the streets around the 
     modest brick building of Congregation Agudath Israel of 
     Borough Park. By late yesterday, more than 20,000 had lined 
     up to pay their respects.
       When Rabbi Sherer's white coffin, draped with a black 
     velvet cloth, was carried from the hearse into a sun-soaked 
     street, a huge cry of grief rose from the crowd. The coffin 
     was supported by about 20 men and seemed in danger of 
     toppling as the men jostled for position.
       ``He had the power and charisma to bring the secular and 
     religious groups together,'' said Joseph Rappaport, an 
     officer with Congregation Agudath Israel. ``He was able to 
     create bridges.''
       Rabbi Sherer, who died at age 78, had for more than 30 
     years headed Agudath Israel of America, an advocacy 
     organization that he helped transform from a small group into 
     a formidable movement that claims 100,000 members and has 
     branches around the country.
       Among those paying respects yesterday were Gov. George E. 
     Pataki, Mayor Rudolph W. Guiliani and other politicians and 
     dignitaries. The crowds grew so big that the police blocked 
     car traffic from 13th through 16th Avenues and 43d through 
     50th Streets.
       One mourner, Morton M. Avigdor, leaned against a police 
     barricade in front of the congregation building and explained 
     how Rabbi Sherer had fought for government benefits and 
     services for children in nonpublic schools by allying himself 
     with Catholic school advocates.
       ``He felt that people of all faith should be entitled to 
     education,'' said Mr. Avigdor, a lawyer. ``It is truly a 
     great loss.''

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