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Resolution of dispute among R. Shenkman, R. Shapiro, and board members of Atlatic City as to the Rabbinate, Kasrut Supervision and salaries. The decree is signed by the five members of the Bet Din: R. Elijah Henkin (NYC), R. Tovia Gefen (Atlanta), R. Zev Wolff Goldberg (?), R. Chaim Fishel Epstein (Cleveland), and R. ? |
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R. Henkin was born in Klimovichi, Belorussia, where his father was head of the yeshivah. Leaving his native town, he studied for six years at the yeshivah of Slutsk under R. Isser-Zalman Meltzer, who together with R. Baruch Baer Leibowitz and R. Jechiel Michael Epstein ordained him. After serving as rabbi in Kavkazskaya and as head of the yeshivah in Sokolov, Henkin emigrated to the United States in 1922 and settled in New York City. In 1925 he was appointed director of Ezras Torah, an organization founded in 1915 by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis to provide assistance to rabbinical scholars in war-torn Europe. Under his direction, Ezras Torah expanded into a general charity distributing hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to thousands of needy persons. Henkin was continually called upon to decide points of Jewish law. He was particularly authoritative on divorce procedure and on laws of Sabbath as they relate to the new technology.
R. Tovia Gefen (1870–1970), U.S. Orthodox rabbi. Geffen, who was born in Kovno, Lithuania, studied first under Isaac Elhanan Spektor and later at the Slobodka Yeshivah. After holding a rabbinic position in Kovno he went to the U.S. in 1903 and served congregations in New York and Canton, Ohio. In 1910 he was appointed to Congregation Shearith Israel, Atlanta, Georgia, where he remained active until the end of his life. Geffen published an autobiography in Yiddish and several volumes containing sermons, responsa on Jewish law and talmudic dissertations. He was a zealous teacher and an energetic worker for public causes, and these qualities, together with his talmudic scholarship, gave him an authoritative position among Orthodox Jews in the southern U.S.
R. Chaim Fishel Epstein (1874-1942) was born near Kovna, was Rabbi of Siena, Russia, emigrated to the United States in 1924. He served as Rabbi of Cleveland and subsequently St. Louis. He is the author of several works of responsa.
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