Memory Lane: Agudas Yisroel of Boro Park (Zeirei)

Perhaps the most important Shul in postwar America, the epitome of the rebirth of Torah Jewry following the Holocaust, was Agudas Yisroel of Boro Park—which, in its heyday, brought together Yidden from Russia and Poland, American-born kids, and those who had immigrated closer to the turn-of-the-century.

Klal leaders such as Rav Moshe Sherer and Rabbi Dr. Hillel Seidman, and Talmdei Chachomim such as the Rav Yisroel and Rav Dovid Perkowski—to name a minute few—were all united under this roof… the banner of Agudas Yisroel, of united ideals, of building and rebuilding.

Today, we take a few glimpses into the early history of this legendary place which would soon become the foundation for so much rebirth.

Bringing Zeirei to Boro Park

Almost from the beginning, it was a center for the “Zeirim and the Pirchim,” two age groups that Agudas Yisroel understood needed sustenance and belonging in a group of like-minded peers.

At the time of the inauguration of the enormous building on Fourteenth Avenue, Reb Moshe Yehuda Gleicher writes: “Pirchei and Zeirei are two precious blooms that have sprouted out of the tree of life of Agudas Yisroel, and carry the future of the Jewish People. “For more than thirty years, Boro Park’s Jews have been fortunate to know that their children are part of this ‘camp’ of Pirechei Agudas Yiseoel, and that the yeshiva bachurim have found an uplifted atmosphere in which to spend time with their friends after their studies, within the safe haven of Agudas Yisroel.”

‘A Lodging for Torah’

Zeirei was also the launching pad for a number of Boro Park mosdos—including Yeshivas Beis Yosef-Novardok, as Reb Moshe Yehuda recalls: “I remember when [recently departed ga’on, and member of Mo’etzes Gedolei HaTorah] Rav Avrohom Joffen arrived here in 1941, along with a group of Talmidim. His first stop was in Boro Park.

“His incredible mesirus nefesh for Torah did not even allow him to rest up from the long and arduous journey that he had endured through Siberia and Japan. He immediately began the work of finding a suitable place where he would be able to establish the yeshiva in the ways of the more than sixty Novaradoker Yeshivos that dotted Europe and Eretz Yisroel.

“The difficulties in finding a place caused him much heartache, since he did not wish to delay even one moment. Zeirei Agudas Yisroel of Boro Park became aware of this, and the writer of these lines, as president, immediately offered our Shul, free of charge. I will never forget that Thursday, 5 Elul, when Beis Yosef was opened in Zeirei Agudas Yisroel, with the participation of Rabbonim and Balebatim. This Torah event held particular significance for the young people in the Agudah movement in Boro Park, who considered it a great zechus to be the ones to make it possible for the Rosh Yeshiva to carry out that which he had taken upon himself; to spread Torah and shape talmidim.

“At every opportunity, Rav Joffen would smile, as he said, ‘by you, in the Agudah, we had for a long time our achsanya shel Torah in America.’”

The postwar era brought an influx of Holocaust survivors as well as refugees from the Lithuanian Torah world—all of whom formed a cohesive kaleidoscope in which they raised their generations united around the ideals of Torah and Yiddishkeit for which Agudas Yisroel has always stood.