Congregation Beis Ephraim Yitzchok welcomes new rav

Rabbi Zvi Ralbag to be installed in September

Issue of August 22, 2008

Congregation Beis Ephraim Yitzchok in Woodmere, commonly known as the Island Avenue Shul, will inaugurate Rabbi Zvi Ralbag as its new mara d’atra next week.

CBEY, on Peninsula Boulevard, is home to 90 full-time members. Menachem Kagan is the congregation’s president.

Rabbi Ralbag comes to the community from Staten Island, where he served as assistant rabbi in the Young Israel of Staten Island for the past six years. In May, he was voted in to succeed Rabbi Shalom Rosner – the shul’s rav since its inception in 2001 – who went on aliyah with his family on Monday to assume a rabbinic position in the anglo community of Nofei Hashemesh.

Though he is new to the Five Towns, Rabbi Ralbag’s name was familiar to some even before he was selected as the new rav for its association with the Triangle K hechsher, which his grandfather founded. Currently, that hashgacha is not accepted as a reliable certification by the Vaad Hakashrus of the Five Towns and Far Rockaway.

“Our decisions on what is acceptable and not acceptable are based on the OU guidelines,” explained Rabbi Yosef Eisen, head of the Vaad. “As far as I know, Rabbi [Zvi] Ralbag doesn’t have to do with the hashgacha. If someone is the rabbi of an Orthodox shul in the Five Towns and Far Rockaway, they are automatically deemed acceptable to be part of the Vaad. We don’t examine individual rabbis’ standards.”

The shul did take this into consideration before deciding which rabbi to hire, after narrowing down a larger pool of candidates to four finalists who were invited to CBEY for a Shabbos.

“Before Rabbi Ralbag came down we asked Rabbi Eisen if Rabbi Ralbag would be able to work with the Vaad Hakashrus and he said absolutely,” recounted Josh Szpilzinger, a member of CBEY’s board of directors. “The Vaad has policies and not every rav on the Vaad has the same policies – they don’t all come from the same place.”

Rabbi Ralbag grew up in Brooklyn, where he attended Yeshiva Torah Temimah. After high school, he went on to study in Israel at the Chevron yeshiva, where he received his semicha. In 1996, he married Paghit Herzog of Toronto, Canada. They moved to the Shaarei Chesed neighborhood of Yerushalayim, where Rabbi Ralbag focused on post-graduate Kollel studies for Dayanut, passing his exam from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, and receiving semicha Yadin Yadin. Since 2002, he has served as the assistant rabbi of the Young Israel of Staten Island, where he was also responsible for the local eruv. In 2005, he graduated with a B.S. of Actuarial Science from Touro College and passed his Actuarial exam later in the year.

Rabbi Ralbag declined to be interviewed.