Harry Fischel

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Harry Fischel c.1865 - 1948) was a prominent Jewish New York City businessman and philanthropist at the turn of the 20th century.

Born in Russia, he emigrated to the United States in 1885.

Harry Fischel was one of the leading pioneers in the growth of American Judaism, in general, and in American Jewish Orthodoxy, in particular, particularly in the dynamic precedent-setting first half of the 20th Century.

A mere list of all the Jewish organizations owing their existence, identities, and/or ability to be perpetuated, in whole or in part, to Harry Fischel could fill this entry, so it should be noted at the outset that this entry does not even mention all of the organizations in these categories, let alone the roles of Mr. Fischel in them.

Harry Fischel was born in Russia in 1865, constructed a model version of the Mishkan (the holy Tabernacle) at 10 years of age, mastered the basics of architecture by the time he was 18, became an architect and a builder at 19, immigrated to America virtually penniless at 20 (after giving most of his earnings to his parents who remained in Russia), and earned his first million in real estate at a young age, but sent money home to help support his parents in Russia even before he was earning $10 per week in America. Among his numerous distinctions were his service as the Treasurer of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), beginning in 1890; a director of the Beth Israel Hospital in 1891 (credited with laying the groundwork for its kosher policy up to and including the present); Vice-President of the Machzikay Talmud Torah, the oldest in New York City, in 1894; host to the Hebrew Free Loan Society (in the basement of his home) in 1897, and later its Vice-President; Vice President of the Beth Israel Hospital in 1900; Vice-President of the monumental Beth Hamedrash Hagadol on the Lower East Side until he moved to Park Avenue in 1902; builder of the first modern Jewish theater in 1904 (exclusively for productions in Yiddish); charter member of the American Jewish Committee in 1906; prevailed on his co-founders to designate him to chair its second annual luncheon, to assure it and its future events would be kosher; personally prevailed on President Taft to install a kosher kitchen at Ellis Island in 1911 so that Orthodox Jewish immigrants could have the opportunity to eat kosher food during a probation period and become strong enough to pass the test to avoid deportation; president of the Uptown Talmud Torah in Manhattan in 1911 (in one of the first structures in New York built exclusively for this purpose, and then widely considered “the most important Jewish educational institution in America”); charter member and first treasurer of the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War, in 1914; a member of the Executive Committee of the Joint Distribution Committee in 1914; organizer of the Palestine Building Loan Association in 1921; builder of a home and synagogue for the Chief Rabbi of Palestine at his own expense in 1923; he established the Harry Fischel Institute (Machon Harry Fischel) for Research in Talmud in 1931 (which, after the creation of the country of Israel, trained, for many years, literally half of all the judges who presided over the religious courts in the country); established the Harry Fischel Foundation in 1933 (later renamed the Harry & Jane Fischel Foundation).

Fischel’s efforts on behalf of Yeshiva College and its predecessor yeshivot can be highlighted as follows: in 1889, Fischel became a director of the Etz Chaim Yeshiva; in 1895, Fischel became the Chair of its Building Committee; in 1915, he became the Chair of the Building Committee of the newly merged Etz Chaim and Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, and a vice-president of the latter; in 1920 he became the Chair of the Building Committee of the institution that would become Yeshiva College; and in 1927 he was the Chair of the Building Committee upon the occasion of the laying of the cornerstone of the main building of the main campus of Yeshiva College in Washington Heights (now known as the Wilf Campus). This last very public achievement might never have become a reality were it not for some work Mr. Fischel had done earlier, very privately, behind the scenes. In 1924 he had influenced the Lamport family into collectively making donations adding up to the unprecedented sum of $100,000 to Yeshiva College, and then promptly matched that donation, singlehandedly, as soon as it was announced, so that his donation was actually the largest donation to Yeshiva College by a single individual during the college’s formative years and for a significant period of time afterwards. Fischel established the Harry Fischel Graduate School for Higher Jewish Studies at Yeshiva University in 1945, climaxing more than half a century of leadership positions and initiatives (56 years) in the University and its predecessors. The main study hall or bet medrash at the main campus is known to this day as the Harry Fischel Study Hall, but it was so named only after Fischel paid for a major renovation around 1940. A plaque in the main building of the main campus testifies that Mr. Fischel even served, for a time, as Acting President of Yeshiva College.

The main contribution of Harry Fischel to Jewish history was as a role model of a person who demonstrated by example that it was possible to be an observant Jew and to reach and maintain the heights of success financially, philanthropically, and socially without sacrificing one’s loyalty to Jewish law, and then it was possible to maintain this status despite donating so much of one’s time and assets to charitable organizations.

On a personal level, Harry Fischel had four daughters and no sons who survived into adulthood. One daughter married a physician (Dr. Henry Rafsky), one married a lawyer (State Senator Albert Wald), one married a banker (David Kass), and one, as noted earlier, married a rabbi (Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein). Fischel openly stated that since he had no sons to bear his name, he had more of a motivation than most people to perpetuate his name by other means, in his case, the institutions named after him, in Israel and in America.

It would be fair to say that America in the 19th century was a relative wasteland, Jewishly, and most Jews who lived in that era were almost heroic if they simply maintained their own religiosity. If they did not assimilate, themselves, surely most of their offspring were assimilated by the next generation, and even more in the next, and so on. Yet Harry Fischel had the rare distinction of seeing most of his descendants attend yeshiva day schools and remain religious. Many continue to serve the Jewish community with distinction, particularly as to communal, religious, and Israel-oriented matters. A partial sampling of the religious positions of prominence of his direct descendants includes his grandson Simeon Goldstein, who served as executive director of the Fischel Foundation and continues to hold leadership positions in the National Council of Young Israel; his grandson Dr. Gabriel Goldstein who served as President of the Fischel Foundation; his granddaughter Josephine Reichel, who served as national president of the Agudah Women of America; his granddaughter Dr. Naomi Cohen, who is a professor at the University of Haifa, and has become active at the cutting edge of the Jewish women’s movement in Israel; his great-grandson Seth Goldstein became the president of the Etz Chayim Congregation in Queens; his great-granddaughter Eliraz Kraus represented Orthodoxy in a high position in the Prime Minister’s office; his great-grandson Rabbi Aaron Reichel was the National President of Yavneh; his great-grandson Rabbi Hillel Reichel is the Director of the Machon Harry Fischel (the Fischel Institute) in the historic campus and building in the Bucharian Quarter, in Israel; and various great-grandchildren have served in the Israeli army and/or have served their communities in Israel with distinction. Among the prominent spouses married to some of his descendants are Haifa Chief Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen, who briefly served as Chief Rabbi of Israel; who also heads the Fischel Institute and the Ariel Institutes, and who previously served as Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem; and Rabbi Dr. O. Asher Reichel, who served as Rabbi of the West Side Institutional Synagogue and wrote a major biography on the historian and diplomat, Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Halevy, based in part on his thesis when he was awarded the first M.H.L. degree ever issued by the Harry Fischel Graduate School, before he met – and married – Rabbi Goldstein’s daughter, Josephine!

The biography of Harry Fischel, entitled Forty Years of Struggle for a Principle, was written by Rabbi Dr. Herbert S. Goldstein, one of his sons-in-law. Many of Fischel’s activities are also discussed in the biography of Rabbi Goldstein, entitled The Maverick Rabbi, written by Rabbi Aaron I. Reichel, Esq., a grandson of Rabbi Goldstein, and a great-grandson of Harry Fischel.