The Yeshiva’s Decline and Recovery
Dr. Simon G. Kramer, presidient of HTC, was a very dear and long time friend of the Soloveichik family. He was beloved by both Rav Aharon and the board. As such he became a buffer between them. Life at the Yeshiva went on. Despite the differences the Yeshiva grew tremendously in those days.
But Dr. Kramer died suddenly. The board wanted a new president as soon as possible to replace their beloved president. The search began.
Rav Aharon’s contract stipulated that he would have complete authority over any matter having to do with the Yeshiva, from hiring a president to firing a janitor. Every candidate put forward by the board was a rabbi at a Traditional Shul. Rav Aharon vetoed all of them. No president could be found and there was now no buffer between the board and Rav Aharon. The enmity grew, with the Traditional rabbis on the board in the forefront of the opposition to him.
Eventually even some of Rav Aharon’s own faculty turned against him for reasons other than those of the board. Among them were some who were hand chosen by him for their positions.
Dr. Eliezer Berkovits was a faculty member and chairman of the philosophy department. He was there during, before, after Rav Aharon’s tenure. He had initially supported Rav Aharon, but had quickly become very opposed to him because of his opposition to the Traditional Movement. Dr. Berkovits agreed with Rav Regensburg and saw the opposition as an example of the rigidity of modern day Gedolim of his time for whom he had little respect. The Shul requirement of a Mechitza is a Halacha which is not addressed in the Shulchan Aruch.
In an interesting side note Dr. Berkovits never attended a non Mechitza Shul. He was one of the pioneering members of Skokie’s Orthodox Jewish community which is located many miles from the Yeshiva. When he moved to Skokie, there was no Mechitza Minyan. He founded the first Mechitza Minyan in the basement of Skokie Valley Traditional Synagogue, a Traditional Shul. That Minyan eventually became Or Torah, the largest Orthodox Shul in Skokie.
The final blow to Rav Aharon’s tenure occurred when the Mizrachi building located in a dying Jewish neighborhood was sold to a fringe group of Buddhist missionaries. Some of the Mizrachi leaders involved in that sale were also on the HTC board. Rav Aharon vehemently fought that sale. He lost. About a year later his contract expired and it was not renewed. Rabbi Joseph B Soloveichik, and Rav Moshe Feinstein became involved and both Paskin’d that the board could not Halachicly do this. Rav Aharon had a Chazaka, which is in effect a kind of Halachic tenure. The board didn’t see it that way.
Rav Aharon then opened his own Yeshiva. Half the student body and part of the faculty of HTC went with him to the newly established Yeshivas Brisk. They were immediately successful. Many of the more moderate Orthodox elements in Chicago who were opposed to the Traditional Movement and its influence in HTC and upset at what happened to Rav Aharon sent their sons to Brisk. Brisk was quite successful from the very start and continued that way for a period of time.
HTC on the other hand, was now able to hire the Traditional rabbi who Rav Aharon had rejected and who had always been their first choice: Loop Synagogue Rabbi Irving Rosenbaum. He was a very knowledgeable and popular Rabbi who had long before taken a non Mechitza Shul on the advice of his Rebbe, Rav Regensburg.
HTC was not successful. They floundered. Over the years they hired a series of very prominent Roshei Yeshiva, including Rav Moshe Herschler of Yerushalyim and Rav Yechezkel Lichtman, a huge Talmid Chacham and an early Talmid of Rav Aharon Kotler. But by the early eighties the Yeshiva had by and large been unable to get students to attend. It had become an almost exclusive school for the children of refugees from Ayatollah Khomeini’s new Islamic Republic of Iran. They were all Sephardim.
The Yeshiva was at a point where they were seriously looking for a Chacham instead of a Rosh HaYeshiva. This was further compounded by the opening of a new Chafetz Chaim Yeshiva in nearby Milwaukee, The Wisconsin Institute of Torah Study, W.I.T.S. They had almost instant success. They are currently one of the most successful of Chafetz Chaim Branch Yeshivos.
Members of the HTC board were troubled by this turn of events. HTC was not a Sephardi Yeshiva. It was an Ashkenazi one. These board members were Ashkenazim, their children were Ashkenazim. The Chicago Jewish community was almost exclusively Ashkenazim. They had every right to expect that most parents would send their children to their school. But no one did. Parents were sending their children anywhere but Skokie.
The Orthodox members of the board were given the go-ahead to try and resurrect the Yeshiva to its former glory. Rabbi Rosenbaum was let go after his contract expired. He went on to found Davka Corportion, the Jewish software company.
Rabbi Don Well was hired as the new president with a mandate to fix the school. And this he did magnificently. He hired excellent faculty members. Many of the rebbeim that he hired in the mid eighties are still there today and are as popular as ever. They started recruiting students from the Chicago Jewish community and across the nation and were successful. They had turned the tide. People once again started sending their children. The Yeshiva was on its way.
In the meantime a fire broke out Yeshivas Brisk. Their building was destroyed. That forced them into a make shift building on the periphery of the Jewish neighborhoods in Chicago. It was not designed well for a school. Shortly after that Rav Aharon had a debilitating stroke that left him paralyzed on one side of his body. Competition from a very successful Telshe Yeshiva, and a very successful W.I.T.S. along with the fact that HTC was now hugely improved caused Brisk to start losing potential students. Brisk never recovered from that point and eventually closed a few years ago as a Yeshiva, although it still remains open as a Beis Hamedrash and Shul.
Back to HTC. My son was by then in the Yeshiva’s high school. I was invited to serve on the board. Rabbi Well had made a concerted and successful effort to pack the board with as many Orthodox members as he could. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. But it wasn't all smooth sailing.
The year before I became a board member, in an effort to further improve and to better compete with W.I.T.S. Rabbi Well had hired a brilliant young Talmid Chacham, Rav Dovid Castle, as the new Rosh HaYeshiva. That turned into a fiasco quickly. Rav Castle had managed in very short order to alienate many parents and board members. He was fired before his first year was up. So, HTC once again had no Rosh HaYeshiva. And its good reputation so painstakingly restored by Rabbi Well and his new faculty, was once again hurt.
Many of the new board members, myself included had heard of Rav Hershel Shachter of Yeshiva University. And we had our sights on him. He was invited to HTC for a scholar in residence weekend. I was the chairman of the Melave Malka. It was a most successful weekend. The Sunday morning after, members of the board met with Rav Shacther at the home of one of the board members and we cornered him.
We basically got on our hands and knees and begged him to become our new Rosh HaYeshiva. He listened politely and kept quiet. He must have been dumbfounded, I’m sure he didn’t expect anything like that to happen. In any case he refused, saying that he was quite happy with his position as a Rosh Kollel in Yeshiva University. The fact was that he had many students in YU. Although the Yeshiva high school was enjoying successful growth, the Beis HaMedrash was practically non existent then. That’s why we wanted him. We thought he would draw students. And he certainly would have.
