(Note: this article used to be available here but has since been removed. As it's no longer on the net, I've titled it as I see fit.) Congregants laud the rabbis in homeland nominee’s past
by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer
New Jersey Jewish News, 01/20/05
Michael Chertoff, President Bush’s nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security, grew up in Elizabeth surrounded by scholarship and compassion, according to former congregants of his father, Rabbi Gershon Chertoff, of the former Congregation Bnai Israel in Elizabeth, and students of his grandfather, Rabbi Paul Chertoff, a Talmud professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary for over 40 years.
At Congregation B’nai Israel in Millburn, which merged with the Elizabeth synagogue in 1992, former congregants recall Gershon Chertoff, ordained in 1941, as a particularly intellectual rabbi who had equal parts compassion and understanding. Born in 1915, he died in 1996.
One recent Shabbat morning, Joe Keselman, 76, of Springfield, who was a member of the congregation 20 years before it merged with the Millburn synagogue, recalled Rabbi Chertoff as “very intellectual.
“He had an enormous personal library. He gave very good sermons and was particularly passionate about politics,” he told NJ Jewish News.
Mona Hirschberg, 78, of Elizabeth, whose grandparents were members of the Elizabeth synagogue and who attended Hebrew school there before becoming affiliated as an adult, eventually served as Sisterhood president. She offered a glowing portrait of Gershon Chertoff, a man who thought deeply about the issues of his time and read widely; who held strong opinions and was involved in every decision of the synagogue, and who was deeply empathetic toward his congregants.
The first time she saw Rabbi Chertoff, she told NJJN, was at a brit. “It was just in passing, but I noticed he was a very handsome young man coming into the temple.” She ultimately came to know him well, she said, as a “true man of the book. When he was not busy with his congregational duties, he could be found every day from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. in his office with his head in a book. The walls were lined with books, and I think he could have recited most of them by heart.”
When the congregation merged with Millburn’s B’nai Israel, most of the items in the synagogue were donated to the Salvation Army, according to Hirschberg. “His great concern was what would happen to his books.” So, she explained, the synagogue board rented an office for him at the local Y and built him a bookcase. His books were moved there so he would continue to have access to them.
He also had a great understanding and compassion for his congregants. “If someone had a loss, he was always there with words of wisdom or understanding…He was always there for us. He related so beautifully to my two daughters. If one had a problem, she would go to him. After my husband died, he gave me very good advice. He told me don’t sell the house. Your younger daughter needs the stability of knowing the house where she grew up is still here. He touched me deeply. He cared.”
While his sermons were brilliant, Hirschberg said, “they were never over anyone’s head.” While he never offered a partisan view of politics, she added, he always discussed the issues of the day in his sermons, particularly on the Shabbat before election day, when he would encourage everyone to vote.
The congregation was proud of his many affiliations with the broader community, and the respect with which he was accorded. “He was consulted by several governors, Democratic and Republican alike. He was a consultant to the state supreme court, and he was asked to sit on the board of Union County College,” according to Hirschberg,
And Gershon Chertoff was respected even when the congregation was divided. When the Conservative movement decided to become egalitarian, “Rabbi leaned more toward practices of yesteryear rather than new practices,” said Hirschberg. “He would weigh and measure his thoughts. There was a huge congregational meeting. And he ultimately prevailed because he was respected. Women could go up and open the ark as long as they were appropriately dressed. Before that, women were not permitted on the bima at all.”
He had opinions on all matters of the synagogue, even the spelling of its name. “He didn’t like the apostrophe in ‘Bnai,’ and so there was no apostrophe.”
Gershon maintained his ties with the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he had trained. When Hirschberg asked the rabbi where he went with his own problems, he responded that he went to his teachers at JTS.
And he had another tie to the seminary: His father, Rabbi Paul Chertoff, ordained in 1911, was a respected Talmud professor who taught undergraduates at what was then called Teacher’s Institute (now known as the Albert A. List College) as well as those preparing for the rabbinate in a graduate program known as the pre-theological program. Today, the Rabbi Paul Chertoff Prize, established by the TI Class of 1941, is awarded each year by List College to an outstanding student of Talmud. Paul Chertoff died in 1966.
Dr. Avraham Holtz, Simon H Fabian Professor of Hebrew Literature at JTS, recalls sitting in Paul Chertoff’s class as a pre-rabbinic student and finding a teacher who was very interested in his students. “He was very well dressed. He had a very good sense of humor. He was a wonderful person and a fine teacher. For me, it was the first time I had studied Talmud in English. [Holtz had previously studied Talmud in Hebrew.] He was very understanding that it was something new for me. He had patience. He would always try to make each student feel that he was the most important. He would be certain each student understood what he was saying and that he understood what each person was saying. He entertained questions and appreciated students’ remarks and would build on them.” Looking at photos of Michael Chertoff in the news, Holtz added, “There’s something of his face that reminds me of his grandfather.”
A member for many years of Temple Beth Ahm in Springfield, Michael Chertoff, who lives in Bernardsville, is now a member of Congregation B’nai Israel in Basking Ridge.
Rabbi Perry Raphael Rank, leader of the Midway Jewish Center in Syosset, was rabbi at Temple Beth Ahm in Springfield from 1987-1999 and recalled that Chertoff “was a good Conservative Jew” who was a member of the synagogue’s havura. Its current rabbi, Mark Mallach recalls that Chertoff and his wife, Meryl, were among the first people he met when they hosted a tea at their home for the new rabbi.
If confirmed by the Senate, Chertoff, a federal appeals court judge who served as U.S. attorney for New Jersey, would succeed Tom Ridge at the helm of a federal department that spans 22 federal agencies.
Poster Comment:
Let's not forget that Chertoff, author of the Patriot Act, was also born an Israeli citizen per Israeli law.
From the The Star-Ledger, Newark, NJ obituary for Chertoff's mother:
Livia Chertoff, 73, El Al flight attendant
21 December 1998
The Star-Ledger Newark, NJ
FINAL
OBITUARY Services for Mrs. Livia Chertoff, 73, of Delray Beach, Fla., mother of former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, Michael Chertoff, will be held at 1 p.m. today in the Kreitzman's Memorial Home, 1500 Morris Ave., Union.
Mrs. Chertoff died Saturday in the Ashbrook Nursing Home, Scotch Plains.
She was the first airline hostess for El Al Airlines and participated in Operation Magic Carpet, the famous airlift of Yemenite Jews to Israel.
Mrs. Chertoff also operated L'Artigue, an art gallery in Elizabeth.
Her son, Michael, served as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1983 through 1987 and as First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey from 1987 through 1990. He was U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey from 1990 through 1994 and during the Whitewater investigation in 1995 and 1996, he was counsel for the Senate Banking Committee.
Born in Poland, Mrs. Chertoff lived in Palestine and Elizabeth before moving to Florida several years ago.
Also surviving are three sisters, a brother and two grandchildren.
