Baruch Sorotzkin

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Rabbi Raphoel Baruch Sorotzkin (1917-1979) was the Rosh Yeshiva of the Telz Yeshiva in Cleveland and among American Jewry's foremost religious leaders.

Rabbi Sorotzkin was born on Monday 5th February 1917 (13th Shevat 5739) in Zhetl, Lithunaia. His father, Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin was the town's Rabbi.

As a young man, Rabbi Sorotzkin studied under Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman in Baranovich, and then under Rabbi Baruch Ber Lebovitz in Kamenitz.

In 1940, Rabbi Sorotzkin married Rachel Bloch, daughter of the Telzer Rav and Rosh Yeshivah, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Bloch. Rabbi Sorotzkin and his wife fled Europe at the start of World War Two and made their way to the United States. There, they joined his wife's uncles (and his own cousins) Rabbi Eliyahu Meir Bloch and Rabbi Chaim Mordechai Katz who had re-established the Telz Yeshiva in Cleveland, Ohio.

In 1943 Rabbi Sorotzkin began delivering classes in the yeshiva.

In 1962, Rabbi Sorotzkin became dangerously ill and the name Raphoel was added to his name.

In 1964, when the Telz Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Chaim Mordechai Katz died, Rabbi Sorotzkin together with Rabbi Mordechai Gifter assumed the leadership of the yeshivah.

In the Telzer tradition, Rabbi Sorotkin extended his sphere of activities to include even more areas of communal responsibility, such as working for Chinuch Atzmai, Torah Umesorah and Agudath lsrael of America where he served as one of the youngest member of its Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah - Council of Torah Sages.

In 1977, Rabbi Mordechai Gifter left Cleveland to establish a branch of the Telz Yeshiva in Israel, leaving Rabbi Sorotzkin to oversee the yeshiva in Cleveland.

Rabbi Sorotzkin died on Saturday 10th February 1979. The Hebrew date - 13th Shevat - was the same date as his birthday.

Many of his lectures on Talmud have been posthumously published by his children.

Rabbi Sorotzkin's wife passed away in November of 2006