Yeshiva Graduates Orthodox Rabbis at 6th Commencement

Forty-one students of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, formerly located at 301 East Broadway, New York, and now established in the spacious new buildings of the Yeshiva College, were graduated with the title of Rabbi at the commencement exercises held Tuesday afternoon in the auditorium of the Yeshiva College, Forty students of the Teachers’ College received diplomas as teachers for Hebrew and religious schools. The degree of Doctor of Hebrew Literature was conferred upon Dr. David I. Macht, Lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, whose thesis on “Incense in the Bible” recently received favorable comment among scholars.

The exercises marked the sixth commencement since the reorganization of the institution in 1915, the first to be held in the new building. The date coincided with the anniversary of the death of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan, famous Talmudic authority of the nineteenth century of Kovno, for whom the institution was named, thirty-four years ago, when it was founded.

Two thousaud persons filled the auditorium. Dr. Bernard Revel, president of the faculty, conferred the degrees. Addresses were delivered by Rabbi M. S. Margolies, Rabbi Simon Shkop, former head of Talmudic acadcmies in Europe and recently appointed head of the Rabbinical Department, Rabbi Israel Rosenberg, president of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis, and Rabbi B. L. Levinthal of Philadelphia. Rabbis William Drazin, Solomon Wind

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and M. Goldberg spoke for the graduating class.

“If the synagogue is to remain a source of sustaining strength in our struggle for spiritual survival, if it is not to become empty of meaning and value, it must continue to draw its inspiration and strength from the Torah. Only then will it become once more the home of steadfastness and spirituality, influencing and shaping our lives,” declared Dr. Revel, who decried the growth of “religious illiteracy” among American Jews, and the “connivance of misguiding spiritual leaders,” which combines, together with the pseudo-scientific materialism of the age, and the “ascendance of religiously illiterate lay-leadership, “to divert the synagogue from its traditional past.

Of those receiving their rabbinical degrees, eleven have already been called to positions in various parts of the country. They are William Drazin, Drawford Street Synagogue, Roxbury, Mass.; Samuel Berliant, Wilmington, Delaawre; Morris Max, Uniontown, Pa.; Benjamin Ruditzky, Maspeth, L. I.; A. Einhorn, Erie, Pa.; H. Bonchek, Kingston, N. Y.; S. Tabak, Union City, N. J.; Joseph Shapiro, Braddock, Pa.; M. Eskolsky, Congregation Emanuel, Bronx; I. H. Weisfeld, Miami, Fla.; Emanuel Marcus, Crown Heights Talmud Torah, Brooklyn, N. Y.

Others who received rabbinical degrees were: William Berman, Abraham Bloch, Alexander Budin, Hyman Cohen, Aaron Dachowitz, Samuel Driarsh, Isaac O. Gimprich, Harry Goldberg, Louis Goldberg, Moses Goldberg, Meyer Goldman, Judah Herskovitz, Nehemia Katz, Lawrence Hordes, Alexander Hyatt, Herschel Koenigsberg, Lawrence Levinson, Max Meltzer, Jacob Nislick, Isaiah Rackovsky, Samuel Rosen, Harold Rosenthal, Aaron Sadowsky, Herman Spiro, Mathias S. Sternberg, Harry Weinstein, Solomon Wind, Morris Zembrovsky.