Aharon Kotler
Rabbi
Aharon (or Ahroyn, Aaron, Aron) Kotler (
1891 -
1962) was a prominent leader of
Orthodox Judaism in
Lithuania, and later the
United States of America, where he built one of the first
yeshivas in the US.
Rabbi Kotler was born in
Svislovitz, Poland in 1891. He studied in the
Slabodka yeshiva in
Lithuania under the "Alter (elder) of Slabodka", Rav
Nosson Zvi Finkel, and Rabbi
Moshe Mordechai Epstein. After learning there, he joined his father-in-law, Rabbi
Isser Zalman Meltzer, to run the
yeshiva of Slutzk.
When the communists took over, the yeshivah moved to Kletzk in Poland. With the outbreak of
World War II, Rabbi Kotler and the yeshivah relocated to
Vilna, then the major refuge of most
yeshivoth from the occupied areas. Rabbi Kotler went to the United States via
Siberia, but many of his students did not survive the war. He was brought to America in 1941 by the
Vaad Hatzolah rescue organization and guided it during the
Holocaust.
In
1943, Rabbi Kotler founded
Bais Medrash Gevoha in
Lakewood, New Jersey. After his sudden death in
1962, he was succeeded by his son Rabbi
Shneur Kotler as
rosh yeshiva of the
Lakewood yeshiva.
Today, this important institution is run by his grandson, Rabbi
Aryeh Malkiel Kotler, and three of his grandsons-in-law, Rabbis Olshin, Newman, and Shustal.
Over the years it has grown into the largest institution of its kind in America with over two thousand college- and advanced-level students. He also helped establish
Chinuch Atzmai, the independent religious school system in Israel and was the Chairman of the
Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of
Agudath Israel. He also chaired the Rabbinical administration board of
Torah Umesorah and was on the presidium of the
Agudas HaRabbonim of the U.S. and Canada.
Rabbi Kotler was the main proponent of a classic approach to
Torah study that was new to the shores of the USA. In his view, Torah study and the culture built around it had suffered badly from the persecutions of World War II and the decline of character of the generations. This led him to encourage young men to devote themselves to full-time Torah study with financial support from the community. After marriage,
yeshiva students could move on to a post-graduate
kollel program.
Together with Rabbis
Moshe Feinstein,
Yaakov Kamenetsky,
Joseph Soloveitchik and others, Rabbi Kotler was considered one of the primary leaders of the
Orthodox community in the U.S. during the post-war years.
Kotler, like most Orthodox leaders, was strongly anti-Zionist. An the summer of
1937, at the third convention of the rabbinical leaders of
Agudath Israel held in
Marienbad, Kotler and the other rabbis there were unanimous in rejecting any proposal for a "Jewish State" on either side of the Jordan River, even if it were established as a religious state.
Rabbi Kotler died in New York City on November 29, 1962.
External links
*
Jewish virtual library about Aharon Kotler (1895-1963)*
Kotler's views on Zionism
