YOYSEF-MEYER MARGOLIS

YOYSEF-MEYER MARGOLIS (b. 1891)

           He was born in Jerusalem, where his father, Rabbi Yekhiel-Tsvi Margolis, was among the great scholars there.  He studied with his father and in yeshiva, later as a pupil of Rabbi Y. A. Kook.  At age eighteen he received ordination into the rabbinate and was appointed rabbi in the “Polish school” in London.  In 1922 he made his way to Canada and became head of the Montreal yeshiva.  From 1925 he was living in the United States.  He was rabbi of the New York congregations of “Maḥazike Tora” (Upholders of the Law), “Taharat Hakodesh” (Purity of Sanctity), “Naye slonimer shul” (New Slonim synagogue), and “Adat Yeshurun” (Community of the Upright), while simultaneously he was head of school at the Israel Salanter Yeshiva in the Bronx.  He was a member of the leadership of the “Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada.”  He published articles in: Di tsayt (The times) in London; Keneder odler (Canadian eagle) in Montreal; Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal), Dos idishe likht (The Jewish light), Idishe shtime (Jewish voice), Di ortodoksishe shtime (The Orthodox voice), Shul-lebn (Synagogue life), and in Hebrew: Hapardes (The orchard), Hayehudi (The Jew), and Hamesila (The roadway), among others—in New York.  He author religious and secular works in both Hebrew and Yiddish, among them: Toyre un lebn (Torah and life), sermons on the Torah portions of the week, holidays, Bar Mitzvahs, and death anniversaries (New York, 1933), vol. 1, 258 pp., vol. 2, 295 pp.

Sources: Preface to vol. 1 of Toyre un lebn; P. Vyernik, in Morgn-zhurnal (New York) (October 4, 1933).

Khayim Leyb Fuks