Memory Lane: Rabbi Yosef Gabriel (Ralbag)

It was the year 1930, and at 1265 45th Street in Boro Park, there resided a Rabbi Joseph Gabriel who was born in Jerusalem in the year 1891. It turns out that Rabbi Gabriel was the scion of an illustrious Yerushalmi family who treasured these holy roots for decades to come, even as he spent decades on American soil. 

Holy Roots 

Rav Yosef hailed from the famed Ralbag family which made its way up to Eretz Yisroel during the famed aliyah of the talmidei haGroh in the years of 1807-1808. This contingent elite talmidim became the nucleus from which the Yishuv hayoshon of Yerushalayim would come forth—and the Ralbag’s would play no small role in this development of the Yishuv. 

Among them was Rav Moshe Eliezer Don Ralbag (known as Rav Leizshke), the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Eitz Chaim. The first in his family to be born and bred in the holy land, he never left its environs. He was among the leaders of the old Yishuv, and a right hand of its leader, Rav Yehoshua Leib Diskin, zt”l. 

Family names were not common in the 19th century, and so when it came to choosing a surname, Rav Eliezer Don chose the name Ralbag—derived from the names: Rav Leib Ben Gavriel, alluding to his holy ancestor, Rav Gavriel MiShklov, a talmid of the Vilna Ga’on. Thus, we understand the roots of the name Gavrielovitch which was used by his descendants in later years  

Reb Chaim Ralbag was the son of the famed Rav Eliezer Don, and he married Chayena Ralbag, a daughter of his half-brother, Rav Aryeh Leib (known as Rav Leib Apteiker/pharmacist), who was another son of Rav Moshe Eliezer Don. The couple gave birth to a son, Yosef, around the year 1891. The name Yosef is presumably in tribute to the zeide Rav Yehosef Schwartz, author of Tevu’os Ha’aretz, the father-in-law of Rav Gavriel MiShklov.

In his youth, he learned under Rav Hirsch Pesach Frank in Yeshiva Eitz Chaim, and under Rav Moshe Orenstein in Yeshivas Ohel Moshe. 

A Call to Education 

Yosef married Bas Sheva Fromm, who also hailed from a family of Lita. He left Palestine in order to flee the draft of the Ottoman government. At first, he left for Egypt, where helped organize life for many Russian Jewish refugees who found themselves there fleeing persecution and suffering.  

When he arrived in the US, he initially stayed with his distant relative Rav Hayyim Hirschensohn, who was the rabbi of Hoboken and the author of many seforim, notably Malki Bakodesh. Rav Hirschensohn was married in to the Ralbag family, and he took in his cousin, Rabbi Gavrieli. 

Already involved in the field of education from his days as a rebbi in Yeshiva Eitz Chaim, he was drawn to the field in America as well, and began to take courses in university in the pedagogical field. In 1916, he became the director of the Talmud Torah in Bergen, New Jersey, and later the director of the Jewish Educational Institute in Jersey City. He also became active in communal organizations, and a major part of the American Jewish Congress. In 1926, he became the leader of Keren Hayesod, and moved to Brooklyn, where we have found him in 1930. 

Thereafter, he became a menahel in Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, where he continued to work toward the furtherance of Jewish education. Simultaneously, he served as a rov of a number of prestigious congregations around New York, and at the helm of important communal organizations.  

Organizing Bnei Eretz Yisroel 

Throughout these decades, his love for the land of his fathers did not wane, and he visited Eretz Yisroel a number of times, both before and after the establishments of the state. Throughout this time, he was in close contact with the prominent Rabbonim from the old Yishuv who also found themselves here, such as Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlop, Rav Aaron Teitelbaum, Rav Yaakov Leib Moinshter, and others. 

All of which gives us background to his essay in the book published by Histadrus Bnei Eretz 

Rav Gavrieli returned home to Eretz Yisroel, where he was niftar in the year 1974 and was interred in the cemetery in Sanhedria, following a life filled with good works on behalf of his brethren.