Memory Lane: Rabbi Zev (William) Drazin

The year was 1949, and the Sfas Emes Shtiebel on 42nd Street (One of Boro Park’s first chassidishe shtieblach) suffered a devastating fire, decimating the shul, hundreds of sifrei kodesh, and a number of Sifrei Torah. The Levaya for the sifrei Torah took place in the nearby Congregation Anshei Sfard, where hundreds of people gathered to mourn the loss of the holy scrolls. 

In the photos from that event, we see a tall, imposing man at the center of the bimah. He was Rabbi Zev (William) Drazin, and the rov of the Sfardishe Shul in the middle of the 20th century. He had a storied rabbinic career before moving to Eretz Yisroel where he was nifar in 2006. 

Montreal 

Rabbi Drazin was born in Montreal, Canada, in the year 1911. His parents were Reb Aaron and Malka Drazin, who arrived in New York from Russia in the year 1907. He then took his family to Ottawa, where he remained until his passing in 1928. During Zev’s youth, he learned in the local Talmud Torah, and it was after his bar mitzvah that his parents made the fateful decision to send him off to New York where he was enrolled in the Rabbeinu Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary 

He remained at RIETS for six years, obtaining semicha there at the young age of nineteen, and while still in yeshiva, he received his B.A. degree from City College. 

As yet unmarried, Rabbi Drazin then decided to visit the Torah centers of Eastern Europe and Eretz Yisroel, and to meet their gedolim. 

Congregation Anshei Sfard 

The first rabbinic position where we find Rabbi Drazin upon his return to the States is in Savannah, Georgia, in 1942. The Jewish Press (seemingly published out of Omaha, Nebraska), writes: “Rabbi William Drazin is chosen head of Rabbinical Council. Rabbi William Drazin of Savannah, Ga., was elected president of the Rabbinical Council of America at its eighth annual convention in Chicago.” 

In Savannah, Rabbi Drazin worked to provide the local Yidden with their spiritual needs, as we find in the Southern Jewish Weekly: “Savannah’s Jewish Scouts Will Have Kosher Food. Construction on a division of the mess hall at the Boy Scout camp whereby the Jewish Boy Scouts will be able to have kosher foods in connection with the regular camp was announced by William S. Parks…. Rabbi William Drazin, of Congregation B’nai Brith Jacob, is cooperating with Mr. Parks in the scout camp project.” 

It was during those war years that Rabbi Drazin became active on behalf of the suffering Yidden of Europe. In addition to his work at the Rabbinical Council of America in petitioning the United Nations to open the doors of its countries to Jews seeking to escape Europe, he was part of the board of the American Jewish Conference which stood in contact with the United States governed and the War Refugee Board to rescue Europe’s Jews.  

Sometime in the 1940’s, Rabbi Drazin came to the Sfardishe Shul in Boro Park, where he served for a number of years as the rov of the main shul. 

It is at the Sfardishe Shul where we find the aforementioned vevaya over which Rabbi Drazin officiated: “More than 1,000 members of Congregation Sfas Emes attended burial services for 18 holy scrolls and 5,000 religious books yesterday in a neighboring synagogue, Congregation Anshei Sfard,” reports the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on Monday January 24. 

“Rabbis William Drazin and Meyer Pinsky (longtime rov of the ‘downstairs minyan’, a brother-in-law of Rav Avraham Kalmanowitz) officiated at the services. Cantor Joseph Mandelbaum, also of the host synagogue, sang the prayers during the services. Abraham Holland, president of the ruined temple, declared that despite the destruction of their house of worship, the congregation would remain united. 

“After the services, the holy scrolls which were placed in a cement coffin, and the religious books in bags, were taken to Beth David Cemetery on a truck and buried in a plot owned by the congregation.” 

“My father was a brilliant man, and a loving father. He had many students who loved him as well,” recalled a daughter. 

Rabbi Drazin returned to Eretz Yisroel in 1953, where he lived out his golden years. He was niftar in 1972, and was interred in the Sanhedria Cemetery.