Obituary: Rabbi Moshe Weitman, Dean of TAG, 82
By Mayer Fertig
Issue of Feb. 27, 2009 / 3 Adar 5769
Rabbi Moshe Weitman z”l, the first and only dean of Torah Academy for Girls in the Far Rockaway yeshiva’s 45-year history, passed away Sunday after battling cancer for several years. He was 82.
Thousands of people were present at a funeral for Rabbi Weitman at TAG on Monday morning, but in accordance with his written instructions, no hespedim (eulogies) were delivered. Instead, one of his five sons recited Tehillim (Psalms) while another said a few words of appreciation to those in attendance.
Afterward, mourners accompanied Rabbi Weitman’s aron (casket) on foot as it slowly passed TAG High School, the Yeshiva of Far Rockaway and the Sulitzer Beis Medrash on Beach 9th Street, the shul where he was a longtime member.
Burial was at Mt. Lebanon Cemetery in Woodbridge, N.J.
“Visionary” and “builder” were “two words I would use” to describe Rabbi Weitman, said Rabbi Yaakov Feitman, rav of Kehillas Bais Yehuda Tzvi (the Red Shul) in Cedarhurst.
“Whatever was going on, he was ahead of the curve,” Rav Feitman said of his friend of 40 years.
He recalled co-chairing a Torah Umesorah conference with Rabbi Weitman 25 years ago when Rabbi Feitman was principal of Yeshiva Rabbi Jacob Joseph, known as RJJ. Rabbi Weitman z”l was “always looking ahead to see what he could bring to his school, and to all schools,” Rabbi Feitman said.
“He took a fledgling school in a community that was basically a wasteland in those days and built it into what it is today, with over 1,200 students and several thousand graduates,” said Dr. Shmuel Reisbaum, TAG’s executive director, by cellular phone as he drove to the cemetery.
Rabbi Weitman z”l was also a practicing mohel who performed brissim (circumcisions) on many Russian Jews who arrived in the United States as older children or adults. He taught daf yomi (daily page of Talmud) in Far Rockaway each day and, until shortly before his death, gave weekly classes at Torah Academy for Girls High School.
“One of the most amazing things to be able to watch, these last couple of years, even in the midst of his illness, until recently, he almost didn’t miss a week” of teaching, said Rabbi Feitman, who joined the TAG faculty several years ago. Rabbi Weitman used a wheelchair and on one occasion had to be carried into the building, he recalled. Yet, “when he started speaking into the microphone, he changed. His strength came back and for an hour he regaled the girls with the message of how to be a Bas Yisroel (Jewish woman). Each week the message was the same: how to be a Bas Yisroel,” said Rabbi Feitman.
Before he was recruited to lead TAG, Rabbi Weitman was a community rabbi in Monticello, N.Y., for 14 years.
“He was a man of iron wedded to his principles,” recalled Reisbaum, yet was a man “with a calmness about him.”
“He was a wonderful administrator,” said Rabbi Feitman on Monday afternoon. “He was very careful to get checks out on time, and he was makpid (careful) to demand from his faculty what he demanded of himself: to become involved not only on a teaching level but on a personal level, to show caring for each student.”
That caring extended to adult members of the community as well, said Rabbi Feitman.
“His empathy was enormous. If a rav would tell him that someone was going through financial difficulties he was immediately sympathetic and would provide whatever was needed –– financially or otherwise –– to help them get through the crisis.”
“I felt, as I think did everyone who came into his contact, that he was a wise man, and I don’t use that term lightly,” Rabbi Feitman said. “He just radiated a profound wisdom that understood every soul that he came in contact with.”
Shiva will be observed through Sunday morning at the Weitman home at 1125 Beach 12th Street in Far Rockaway.
Rabbi Weitman is survived by his wife, Toby; five sons and one daughter and their spouses; grandchildren and great-grandchildren. On Shushan Purim, Rabbi and Rebbetzin Weitman would have celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary.
