Rabbi Jacob J. Hecht, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe's right hand man, was a leading Chabad rabbi, educator, writer and radio commentator.
Contents |
He was the spiritual leader of Congregation Meir Simcha Hakohen of East Flatbush and for 44 years was the executive vice president of the National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education.[1] He was also dean of Hadar Hatorah Rabbinical College for Men that he founded along with Rabbi Yisroel Jacobson and the Machon Chana Institute of Higher Learning for Girls. He was also vice president of the Iranian Jewish Children's Fund& founder of the Ivy League Torah Study Program.[2]He was also the founder of th Released Time Program of Greater NY.
He wrote two books: Brimstone and Fire and Essays on Judaism. He was the official translator for Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the head of the Lubavitch Chasidic group, during his radio discourses in Yiddish, and was a commentator on radio station WEVD-AM.
In 2008 they started writing a Torah scroll in his honor.[3] It was completed in December of 2010
Born to a 2nd generation New Yorker, JAcob J. Hecht was a proud Jew & American (yankee). He had 12 children and many (over 100) grandchildren and great-grandchildren (over 250). He died in 1990 of a heart attack while visiting Camp Emunah, a summer camp he founded in Greenfield Park, N.Y. He was 66 years old and lived in Brooklyn. He is sruvived by his wife Chave Hecht(Lasker)