Moses I. Feuerstein, a lay leader of Orthodox Judaism in the U.S. for seven decades, passed away on Sunday at the age of 93. His funeral began in Brookline, Mass., on Monday, and the burial was in Jerusalem’s Har HaMenuchot cemetery on Tuesday evening.
Feuerstein became chairman of the board of his synagogue, as well as president of two major national Jewish organizations -- the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, commonly known as the OU, and Torah Umesorah -- before his 40th birthday. He was also the founder and first editor of Yeshiva College’s student newspaper The Commentator.
He is survived by his wife of 66 years Shirley, their four children, some 20 grandchildren, and many great-grandchildren.
Early in his adult life, Moses Feuerstein served as Alumni President of Yeshiva College. He was a close student of Rabbi Leo Jung of the Jewish Center in the Upper West Side, and played a pivotal role in the development of that prestigious synagogue in the 40’s and 50’s. Under his 12-year term as President of the OU, it embarked on its mission to offer Kosher food to Jews around the world.
“Feuerstein was known as an honest politician and someone who could convene dialogue between different ideological camps within American Judaism,” according to Zev Eleff, who has written a book and edited another about Orthodox Judaism in the U.S. “Under his watch, the OU gained a purpose and meaning and Orthodoxy in America became a viable possibility when it hadn’t been for so many years.”
Feuerstein followed in the path of his father Samuel, a founder of New York-based Torah Umesorah, the National Society for the Development of Hebrew Day Schools, and was honorary chairman of the board of the OU.
The deceased's brother Aaron became famous in 1995 after his Malden Mills factory burnt down; he decided to pay the salaries of all 3,000 abruptly-unemployed workers for six months while the factory was being rebuilt. He explained that he could have taken no other course of action due to his study of the Talmud and the lessons it taught him.