Memory Lane: Rav Mendel Krawiec

Rav Mendel Krawiec was the longtime Rosh Yeshiva of Rebbeinu Jacob Joseph on the Lower East Side’s Henry Street. He came to this position through his great Rebbi, Rav Aharon Kotler, zt”l, Rosh Yeshiva of Lakewood, who was a major figure in the yeshiva, and a great guide to its president, the legendary Irving Bunim. 

Rav Mendel was in Boro Park for two eras of his life. 

The first was when he and a group of talmidim departed from RJJ, and relocated to the Tenke Rov’s Beis Medrash, Khal Bnei Asher, on Twelfth Avenue in Boro Park. The second was when he returned from Eretz Yisroel, where he had made Aliyah in 1973, due to a health conditions. In these final years of his life, he settled in Boro Park. Today, we glimpse into his life story. 

A Kletzker to the Core

Born in the small Lithuanian town of Shinafkeh, Rav Mendel left for Kletzk at the age of thirteen, where his heart would become forged as one with his lifelong rebbi, Rav Aharon Kotler, zt”l. He learned in Kletzk for eighteen years—living with the Kotler family during this time—and would reunite with Rav Aharon in a faraway place, continuing their work of establishing Torah for the future generations. 

Rabbeinu Jacob Joseph

Following a difficult few years in Shanghai, the Krawiec’s, along with their two children, left for San Francisco, and then Brooklyn. With the help of Boro Park Rov, Rav Mordechai Aaron Kaplan of Bnei Yehuda, a cousin of the Krawiec’s, he got a pulpit in Sea Gate, where the family settled down. 

In 1948, Rav Aharon suggested Rav Mendel as a Rosh Yeshiva at RJJ. Over the following decades, Rabbi Krawiec would earn the love and admiration from hundreds of talmidim that he shaped with so much dedication. 

His work at RJJ was rigorous. He would travel from Sea Gate to the Lower East Side, deliver two daily shiurim, and remain to speak in learning with the talmidim. With time, RJJ asked Rabbi Krawiec to oversee the semicha program—helping numerous students study for and acquire semicha, and ultimately enter the Rabbinate. 

He inculcated his students with a lifelong love of Torah learning… even those who went into professions other than learning. He accomplished this by his personal example of love and sweetness in learning—but also by his overwhelming dedication to his students. In the years after his passing, accounts and anecdotes emerged of the way he paid for food and clothing for so many students, out of his own pocket, out of pure love.    

Rav Aharon paid his prize student to learn with his son, Rav Shneur Kotler, zt”l—just as the Brisker Rov paid him to learn with his son, Rav Berel Soloveitchik. For all their years, these great men would refer to Rav Mendel as “Rebbe.” 

Boro Park 

As noted, in the late 1960’s, Rav Mendel took a group of talmidim to Boro Park, where they continued to toil and grow in learning. As Rav Aharon was growing the Lakewood yeshiva—seeking to introduce the idea of full time, intense Torah learning to America—he turned to his beloved disciple at RJJ: “Mendel, shick mir di beste,” send me your best post-yeshiva students to grow our kollel.” And Rav Mendel obliged. One example of this is Rav Meir Hershkowitz, Rosh Yeshiva of Stamford, who would later publish the writings of his great teacher in Chidushei Menachem Mendel. 

His students—who retain the fondest feelings of love and admiration for Rabbi Krawiec, even fifty years after his passing—recall “A tzadik, who was fluent in the entire Torah, Shas, and Poskim.” Many students remained learning under Rabbi Krawiec for five years, and sometimes more.

He left this world in 1992, leaving behind a beautiful Torah family and hundreds of lifelong talmidim, and a brilliant Torah legacy.