Bernard Revel
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Rabbi Bernard (Dov) Revel (September 17, 1885-1940) was an Orthodox rabbi and scholar. He served as the first President of Yeshiva College from 1915 until his death in 1940. The Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies at Yeshiva University is named for him.
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[edit] Early years
Rabbi Revel was born in Pren, a neighboring town of Kovno (today: Kaunas) Lithuania, then part of Russia, a son of the community's Rabbi Nachum Shraga Revel. His father was his first teacher, and when Rabbi Nachum Revel died in 1896 he was buried next to his close friend Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor - indicative of his knowledge and stature.
He briefly studied in Telz yeshiva, attending the lectures of its Rosh yeshiva Rabbi Yosef Leib Bloch. He was also taught by the renowned Rabbi Yitzchok Blazer and learned in the Kovno kollel. Rabbi Revel received semicha at the age of 16, but it is not known from whom. Thereafter, the young scholar earned a Russian high school diploma, apparently through independent study. He also became involved in the Russian revolutionary movement, and following the unsuccessful revolution of 1905, was arrested and imprisoned. Upon his release the following year, he emigrated to the United States.
[edit] United States
Immediately after his arrival, Rabbi Revel enrolled in New York's RIETS yeshiva. He received a master of arts degree from New York University in 1909. Around this time, one of America's senior rabbis and president of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis, Rabbi Bernard Levinthal of Philadelphia, visited the yeshiva and, after discussing Talmudic topics with the new student, invited him to come to Philadelphia as the rabbi's secretary and assistant. Rabbi Revel accepted the post and began to familiarise himself with the alien milieu of American Jewry. At the same time, he began attending law school in Philadelphia, but eventually decided that the law was not his calling. In 1911, he earned a doctorate of philosophy from Dropsie College, the first graduate of that school; his thesis was entitled "The Karaite Halakhah and Its Relation to Sadducean, Samaritan, and Philonian Halakhah".
In November 1908, Rabbi Revel was introduced to his future wife, Sarah Travis of Marietta, Ohio, whom he married in 1909. The members of the Travis family were Lubavitcher chassidim and wealthy Oklahoma oil-men, and Rabbi Revel moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma to join the family business after finishing his doctorate. However, even while serving as an assistant to his brother-in-law Solomon in the petroleum business, and amassing his own fortune, Rabbi Revel's primary occupation continued to be his Torah study.
[edit] RIETS and Yeshiva College
In 1915, Harry Fischel, on the Board of Directors of the newly-merged RIETS, asked Rabbi Dr Revel to come back East and head the institution. In him, Mr Fischel saw a learned and forward thinking educator to lead the yeshiva on the path of becoming a college. Rabbi Revel took up the position and was appointed RIET's first president and Rosh yeshiva.
[edit] Other achievements
He was a presidium member of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis from 1924, later being appointed its honorary president, and authored many articles on Jewish subjects in various Hebrew periodicals such as the Jewish Quarterly Review, Yagdil Torah, Ha-Pardes, and various Yeshiva student publications. He started writing a commentary to the Jerusalem Talmud in Philadelphia, but this was never published. He was an associate editor of Otzar Yisrael, the Hebrew Encyclopedia. In 1935 he became the first vice president of the Jewish Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1987 he appeared on a $1 U.S. Postage stamp, as part of the Great Americans Series.
[edit] References
- As I Knew Him: Memories of Rabbi Dr. Bernard Revel, yucommentator.com
- HaMaayan biography, torah.org
- Obituary, New York Times
- Encyclopedia of Religion; ISBN 0028971353
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