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Rabbi Zevulun Charlop, dean who led Yeshiva U seminary through period of growth, dies at 94
(JTA) — Rabbi Zevulun Charlop, who as dean of the rabbinical seminary at Yeshiva University for 37 years oversaw a period of enormous growth for the Modern Orthodox institution, died Jan. 16. He was 94.
When Charlop was named dean of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at Y.U. in 1971, it had 154 students. When he retired in 2008, it had 340.
Charlop was also on hand for a transition in American Orthodoxy, training American-born, college-educated rabbis to succeed the European-trained rabbis who had held pulpits and led yeshivas through much of the 20th century.
“When I first came to Yeshiva as a student” in the 1940s, “almost all of the roshei yeshiva were European-trained” and many lacked university degrees, he told the New York Jewish Week in 2008, referring to the top scholars on the RIETS faculty. In 2008, he said, over 90% of RIETS faculty trained at Y.U., which offered undergraduate and graduate degrees in addition to ordination.
Charlop saw the transition as a fulfillment of the Y.U. philosophy, “Torah umadda,” or Jewish and secular learning, which posited that Orthodox Jews should take part fully in general society without compromising on their religiosity.
Charlop wanted RIETS “to be a place of intense Torah scholarship,” Chaim Bronstein, an administrator at the seminary, recalled in a tribute upon Charlop’s retirement. However, “he did not want our students and roshei yeshiva to remain in an ivory tower. He wanted them to go out into the community. He wanted to produce rabbis who can relate to the broadest range of Jews throughout the country and throughout the world.”
Charlop was himself a pulpit rabbi, having been given a lifetime contract in 1966 at age 36 by the Young Israel of Mosholu Parkway in the Bronx, New York. Charlop led the synagogue through a period of declining fortunes in the Bronx and the flight of many of the Jews from the neighborhood to the suburbs and other neighborhoods in New York City.
“On Rosh Hashanah, 1977,” he told the New York Jewish Week, “we sold 875 seats” in a main and overflow service. “In 1978, we lost 40 seats. By 1985, we didn’t need a second service. The next year it was less. The next year, it was less than that. We still have many members but few in the neighborhood.” The synagogue closed in 2015.
Charlop was considered an authority on Torah and Talmud and lectured in American history. His scholarly essays include “The Making of Orthodox Rabbis” for the Encyclopedia Judaica and “God in History and Halakha from the Perspective of American History” for The Torah U-Madda Journal, a Y.U. publication. Charlop was also editor of three novellas on Torah and Talmud by his late father, Jechiel Michael Charlop, a Jerusalem-born rabbi.
Aaron Goldscheider, the former rabbi at Mount Kisco Hebrew Congregation in New York’s Westchester County, recalled visiting the dean’s office and studying the writings of Charlop’s grandfather, Ya’akov Moshe Charlop, a disciple of Abraham Isaac Kook, the chief rabbi of Palestine.
“[S]itting in Yeshiva University, a bastion of Lithuanian learning, I was treated to a glimpse of the more mystical world of study characteristic of Rav Kook and his protege Rabbi Charlop,” Goldscheider recalled in the acknowledgements of his book, “Torah United.” “It is impossible to put into words my feelings of gratitude for those precious weekly meetings. They were a source of inspiration at the time and continue to carry me until this day.”
After his retirement, Charlop served as dean emeritus and special advisor on yeshiva affairs to Yeshiva University’s then-president Richard M. Joel.
Zevulun Charlop (pronounced khar-LOP) was born in the Bronx on Dec. 14, 1929. His father had arrived in New York in 1920 and after his own ordination at RIETS served as a pulpit rabbi in New York, Canton, Ohio and Omaha, Nebraska. In 1925, the elder Charlop returned to New York and became the rabbi at the Bronx Jewish Center.
Zevulun attended Yeshiva Salanter in the Bronx and Talmudical Academy, which would later be known as Yeshiva University High School for Boys. He earned degrees at Yeshiva College and Columbia University, and was ordained at RIETS.
Charlop once said that his ideal Y.U. would be “a yeshiva like Volozhin,” a legendary seminary in what is now Belarus, and a university like Columbia. But he would also note wryly that the Vietnam War turned out to be a great recruiter for Y.U., at a time when rabbinical students could earn a deferment from the draft.
Charlop inherited an activist streak from his father, who was one of the organizers of the 1943 “Rabbis’ March” on Washington, D.C. protesting inaction during the Holocaust. Charlop himself led his synagogue in supporting integration during the civil rights movement and various Jewish causes, including the fight for Soviet Jewry and support for Israel. But there were limits to an Orthodox rabbi’s role, he told the student publication Kol Hamevaser in 2012, when Y.U. was facing competition from activist rabbis who sought to liberalize Modern Orthodoxy’s approach to women’s roles and other issues.
“Turning a yeshiva into a big tent can be a dangerous thing; if we start lessening our inward Torah focus then we may start neutralizing learning and, rahamana litslan, yir’as shamayim [God have mercy, our fear of heaven],” he said. “In order to be able to sustain the multifaceted world that we have here in Yeshiva, we have to be deeper in the core. So long as we know that in this process we may be willy-nilly, lightening the thrust of our Torah learning, then widening the tent cannot be achieved. Rather, we must widen and, indeed, deepen our Torah learning and kiyyum ha-mitsvos [fulfill the commandments] at the core.
Charlop served as president of the American Committee for the United Charities in Israel, General Israel Orphans Home for Girls in Jerusalem, and the National Council of Young Israel rabbis.
His survivors include two sons, Rabbi Alexander Ziskind Charlop and Rabbi Zev Charlop, and six daughters, Peshi Neuburger, Leebee Rochelle Becher, Annie Riva Charlop, Shoshana Schneider, Zipporah Raymon and Miriam Reiss. His wife, Judith, died in 1999.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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