In March of 2023, I gave my last sermon from the podium at Park East Synagogue after serving as the interim assistant rabbi. The sermon I gave highlighted the pivotal role Rabbi Bernard Drachman, the founding rabbi of the synagogue, has played in making Jewish life in the United States possible. Here is what I said:

Standing at a podium that is 133 years old is humbling and awe-inducing. In the case of Park East Synagogue, it is not the fact that this same podium had countless world leaders speaking behind it. Standing here is most humbling because a man I just got acquainted with recently–Rabbi Bernard Drachman– a builder of American Judaism, is the one who stood here. 

For those who do not know, Rabbi Drachman was born in Brooklyn, moved to Jersey City, and attended public school. His father, a Polish immigrant, made sure he taught his son basic Hebrew and Chumash at home. 

After attending Temple Emanuel’s Hebrew school, members of the Reform stronghold decided they would send him to Germany to study rabbinics, academics, and get ordained. While in Europe, Rabbi Dratchman fell in love with Orthodoxy and its traditions, the path of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, and he came back and brought it to America. 

In America, Rabbi Dratchman was out of a job. Orthodox Jews wanted a Yiddish-speaking Eastern European-trained rabbi, while Reform Jews wanted someone with Dratchman’s kind of education and upbringing but without his commitment to halacha, and Orthodox tradition. 

After becoming the rabbi of the congregation Beth Israel on 72nd Street and Lexington Ave in Manhattan in 1887. Drachman caused a huge uproar by publicly resigning his position once the congregation abolished its women’s gallery and moved to a reform-style mixed seating format. Once again, Rabbi Drachman was out of a job. 

In 1890 Rabbi Drachman became the rabbi of the congregation Zichron Ephraim, today known as Park East Synagogue, which was established by his father-in-law, Jonas Weil. From then and on to 1945, Drachman served in the congregation, laying the foundations for Jewish life in America. From making sure there are jobs for Jews who insisited on observing Shabbat and were being fired for not working on Shabbat, to relief work on behalf of Jews arriving in New York, to teaching in Yeshiva........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)