Rabbi/author reviews Midwest’s Orthodox history

Who knew that Kansas City, Mo., was once home to an advanced yeshiva with nearly 50 students?

The 75 or so people who showed up Monday night at Congregation Beth Israel Abraham and Voliner were reminded of that fact by the speaker of the evening, Rabbi Gedalia Dov Schwartz, who spoke about the history of Orthodox Judaism in the Midwest, and particularly the Kansas City area.

Rabbi Schwartz is an internationally recognized scholar and rabbinic leader, and heads the Beis Din of the Chicago Rabbinical Council. He is the author of two books and numerous scholarly articles on Jewish law. He also serves as chair of the Rabbinical Council of America’s Halachic Commission and is the head of the New York-based Beth Din of America.

Rabbi Schwartz’s third book, "Shaare Gedulah," or "Gates of Greatness"in English, deals with the American Jewish Orthodox scene from 1850 to the present, and it apparently includes a bit about Kansas City and the Midwest. Rabbi Schwartz was in town Monday to conduct a local Bet Din in conjunction with BIAV's Rabbi Dani Rockoff.

Rabbi Schwartz handed out two photocopied articles — one from the Dec. 8, 1925, Kansas City Journal Post, which included a photo of three Orthodox rabbis arriving from out of town to settle a local kashrut dispute, and the other taken from a 1950 Hebrew-language book that contained a biographical sketch of Rabbi Yehuda Braver, who served as Kansas City’s chief Orthodox rabbi from 1925 to 1944.

Rabbi Braver served as the spiritual leader not of any single congregation, but of 10 small shuls, much in the manner of a European shtetl rabbi, said Rabbi Schwartz. It was Rabbi Braver who established the Toras Moshe yeshiva here in 1936, Rabbi Schwartz said.

Rabbi Braver had studied in the “the great yeshivas of Lithuania” before coming to the United States, Rabbi Schwartz said. He came to Kansas City from Akron, Ohio. Yehuda Braver’s father, Moshe, who was also a rabbi, wound up in Sioux City, Iowa, Rabbi Schwartz noted.

Why the Midwest?

“Why did they end up in the Midwest? What was the attraction in Kansas City or Omaha? … What brought them to communities where we would think ‘What kind of Yiddishkeit could there be in those places?’

“The main reason is the Jewish community started in these Midwestern places. …They were looking for a place, and those communities engaged them to be communal leaders, like in Europe, to give decisions.”

Many Midwestern Jewish communities grew up as kosher adjuncts to the great meat-packing houses of Armour, Swift and Wilson, Rabbi Schwartz said, and the early rabbis were trained in the physical act of kosher butchering as well as Jewish law.

Rabbi Braver not only studied in European yeshivot, but he graduated from a U.S. college and from the University of Kansas City’s School of Law, Rabbi Schwartz noted. He cited a 1934 article Rabbi Braver published in the law school’s journal on the topic of criminal law in the Talmud.

After Kansas City, Rabbi Braver lived and worked in Mexico City and Los Angeles. He died in 1956 in California. His daughter, Shoshana Dolgin-Beer, wrote a biography, “Rav Yehuda Braver: Torah Pioneer in America.”

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