Obituary: Rabbi Emanuel Rackman z"l, 1910-2008

Former rav of Congregation Shaaray Tefilah was 98

By Mayer Fertig

Issue of Dec. 5, 2008 / 8 Kislev 5769 (Updated; originally published Dec 2)

Rabbi Emanuel Rackman, onetime rav of Congregation Shaaray Tefilah, then in Far Rockaway, and holder of at least a half dozen other prestigious posts, passed away Monday at the age of 98. His levaya was held on Tuesday at Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue Synagogue, where he served as rav after his departure from Shaaray Tefilah. Rabbi Bennet Rackman eulogized his father as "a rabbi with guts." “You heard about him as a scholar, as a courageous rabbi,” said Rabbi Kenneth Hain, who was Rabbi Rackman’s assistant for a year at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue. Toward the end of his life Rabbi Rackman was best known as the president and, later, chancellor, of Bar Ilan University, in Ramat Gan, Israel, and for the sometimes controversial piskei halacha he formulated to allow Jewish women trapped in dead marriages, known as agunot, to remarry. Their cause was first championed by his late daughter-in-law, Honey Rackman, a”h, a founder of the Agunah International organization. He may have been controversial, said Rabbi Hain, “But he was a consummate rabbi, who fought for what he believed was right and always remained true to his principals.” Rabbi Rackman served as an assistant to Yeshiva University President Dr. Samuel Belkin, as a professor of political science at YU, and as the university’s provost from 1970 to 1976. Interestingly, he did not attend Yeshiva College although in an interview with YU’s Commentator newspaper several years ago, he recalled that he was the valedictorian of his class at Manhattan Talmudical Academy in 1927. He still remembered the speech he delivered, he said at the time. He did receive semicha at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) from HaRav Moshe Soloveitchik and later from his lifelong friend, Dr. Belkin, whom he had helped to learn English upon his arrival in the United States. Rabbi Rackman also earned a law degree and a doctorate in political science from Columbia University. He and his late wife, the former Ruth Fishman, a”h, were married in December, 1931, and had three sons, Michael, Bennet and Joseph. It was as the rav of Shaaray Tefilah that Rabbi Rackman made his mark on the Five Towns and Far Rockaway communities, according to Mrs. Rita Kramer of Far Rockaway. She and her husband, Milton, have been members of the shul, bli ayin horah, for nearly 59 years. She and her husband were among the very first young couples to make their home in the Far Rockaway community who had not been raised there, “the first of a wave that came after us,” she said. They did so because of Rabbi Rackman, who had been a “ben bayit” at her in-laws home in Bensonhurst during his school years. “If you go into the synagogue today it is a 180 degree metamorphoses,” she noted. “In 1950, my husband bought an etrog and lulav for Sukkot –– and people came over to my husband and said, ‘Milton, we didn’t know you were a rabbi!’ Because very few people in the shul then had a lulav and etrog besides Rabbi Rackman and the shamash,” Mrs. Kramer said. It was with Rabbi Rackman’s encouragement that her husband and several other men were moved to found Hillel, one of the schools that later merged to form HAFTR, she said. “He was warm and nurturing. He was a wonderful rabbi... He would call up every widow every week to wish her a good Shabbos.” Rabbi Rackman practiced what he preached, Mrs. Kramer said, even when no one was looking. “Ruth once told me,” Kramer said, that the Rackmans went to Canada and Rebbetzin Rackman bought some perfume. She could have put the bottle among her things but he made her declare that she had bought something in Canada and pay the duty. He was intellectually honest, too, she recalled. “He was never ashamed to say, ‘I really don’t know, Rita, I really don’t know the answer to that.’ The Holocaust would disturb me terribly. I would say, ‘Where was G-d? How could G-d allow that to happen?’ And he would say, ‘I don’t know.’ He wouldn’t look for excuses. He wouldn’t hide behind quotations.” “He wasn’t judgmental,” Mrs. Kramer said. “He was very tolerant. Sometimes Orthodox rabbis see things only one way. He didn’t. He would see things from many facets and would always try to encourage more observance, or more indulgence or more study... He didn’t sit back and say well, ‘you’re only a 10 percent Jew.’ He said, ‘maybe if you could learn more or I could teach you more, or help you to understand.’ And sometimes people who weren’t observant became observant.” Toward the outset of World War II Rabbi Rackman enlisted in the armed forces, according to a dinner journal prepared on the occasion of his 18th year as rav of Congregation Shaaray Tefilah, provided to The Jewish Star Monday night by the shul’s current rav, Rabbi Dovid Weinberger. During the war Rabbi Rackman held the rank of colonel in the Air Force Reserve and served as chairman of the commission on Jewish chaplaincy in the US Armed Forces. Rabbi Rackman held the presidency of the New York Board of Rabbis between 1955 and 1957, and was president of the Rabbinical Council of America between 1958 and 1960. He also served as a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America. Toward the end of his life Rabbi Rackman divided his time between homes in New York and Ramat Gan, Israel. The Kramers kept in contact with Rabbi Rackman after he left Shaaray Tefilah for the Fifth Avenue Synagogue, calling at least once or twice a year until last year when, Mrs. Kramer said she was saddened to be told that the rabbi’s memory had failed to the point where he would no longer remember them. “He lived a good long life, and we shall miss him,” said Mrs. Kramer. “There weren’t many like him.”

Photo courtesy of Bar-Ilan University

This article has been updated to reflect the following letters to the editor published in the issue of Dec. 12, 2008:

Shaaray was always Orthodox

To the Editor, I read your obituary of Rabbi Emanuel Rackman in this past week’s edition of your newspaper (Rabbi Emanuel Rackman z”l, 98, past rav of Shaaray Tefilah; Dec. 5, 2008). Rabbi Rackman came to Shaaray Tefilah when I was a teenager and we all loved and revered him but this letter is not about him. I was born in Far Rockaway and raised in Shaaray Tefilah, where my parents and relatives were active and officers. My first rabbi was Irving Miller, who received his smicha from Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS). Our shul was Orthodox, not Conservative as you wrote. My family, relatives and friends in Far Rockaway, and many other members of the shul, were Shomrei Shabbos and Orthodox by the standards of pre-World War II America. My family and my friends all had their own lulav and esrog, so I’m not sure what Rita Kramer meant when she said she and her husband were the first ones. In the memory of my parents, I felt it important to correct these misstatements. Roslyn Greenberg Cedarhurst

Not the lone lulav after all

To the Editor: Concerning the obituary about Rabbi Rackman z”l (Rabbi Emanuel Rackman z”l, 98, past rav of Shaaray Tefilah; Dec. 5, 2008) a major and urgent correction must be made and publicized. Shaaray Tefilah was never a Conservative Shul when Rabbi Rackman became its rabbi. From its founding in 1910 It has always been strictly Orthodox in form and substance. Some members as individuals were Conservative in their practices but that did not affect the davening or hashkafa of the Shul. Also, I have been made aware that there were other members besides my husband –– very few –– who also had esrogim and lulavim on Succoth and they were not rabbis either. Rita G. Kramer Far Rockaway