Memory Lane: Rav Meir Shapiro and his Boro Park Host

Among historians, the legend has existed for years that, during his famed visit to America in 1926-1927, Rav Meir Shapiro spent a Shabbos in Boro Park. 

This would be have been an obvious choice, since Boro Park was arguably the wealthiest suburb in the 1920’s. While the Lower East Side, Williamsburg, the Bronx, and Brownsville were comprised of apartment buildings and congested streets, Boro Park offered fresh air, detached homes, and recently-erected infrastructure.  

The shuls of Beth El and Shomrei Emunah teemed with wealthy men who occupied their impressive pews. There was also no shortage of prominent and learned Rabbonim in Boro Park of the 20’s. Of course Rav Meir Shapiro would have visited them in order to support his Yeshiva—but did he? 

The question was finally answered, and as it turned out, he did not spend just any Shabbos here, but Shabbos Chanukah of the year 1926!, as we read in a Yiddish newspaper: “We announce that we have invited the great guest, the Pietrkower Ga’on and Polish Sejm deputy, Rav Meir Shapiro, for Shabbos Chanukah, Parshas Mikeitz, to daven by us in Shul, Beth El, 15th Avenue and 48th Street, Boro Park. 

“The ga’on will speak Friday night at eight, and Shabbos morning before Mussaf. Our esteemed guest will have his lodging by the prestigious and wealthy M. Jonas, 1456 46th Street, Boro Park. L. Rosensweig, president.” 

It would take no small amount of sleuthing to discover that “M. Jonas” stood for Max/Mordechai Jonas, the subject of this week’s sojourn in to the history of old Boro Park.  

Patron of Sunik 

We find in the Yizkor book of the town: 

“A great change in the Talmud Torah took place with the visit of Mr. Jonas, a native of Sunik who lived in America. A gevir, and famed donor in our city. With the influence of askonim of our city, including his brother, R’ Tzvi Jonas, he opened his heart and his hand to all the needs of the Jewish population and gave generously to the needy—communal and individual. Among these was the Talmud Torah, which benefitted from a sizable grant for the erection of a building that would house all of the grades, as well as a magnificent Beis Medrash... 

“Indeed, the three-story building went up—and it served as a spiritual center in the city... to our heartbreak, we did not merit for it to grow... and its lot was the same as all other shuls throughout the city; the accursed hand of the Nazis would strike first at these holy places, and would burn them along with all of their sifrei Torah. 

There are also other entries attesting to his largesse to the people of the city of his birth. 

A Builder in Boro Park 

Max (Mordechai) Jonas was niftar in the same year—1933—as his one-time guest, Rav Meir Shapiro. Only, he was a young forty-one years old when he died suddenly in Palm Beach. 

He was a successful developer in Brooklyn, in neighborhoods surrounding Boro Park—from which he made his fortune, which he gave back to the needy of his hometown, all the way from Boro Park of yesteryear.