Dream It, Do It 

“It’s no exaggeration to say that he was one of the Founding Fathers of American Yiddishkeit in the 1960’s — or that there was no yeshivah boy in Brooklyn who did not know Eli Teitelbaum’s name,” says Rabbi Shimon Grama, former National Director of Pirchei Agudas Yisrael.

Rabbi Grama, some years younger than Eli, paints a picture of the landscape in those years, and Eli’s role in slowly changing it. Whether it was the Chol Hamoed trips he organized, the plays he initiated, or the choir he started, “Eli knew instinctively that children need to DO things,” says Rabbi Grama. “They cannot be inactive, and they cannot just go to yeshivah and come home to eat and sleep — which some people expected of them in those days. They need programs and prizes and activities, and he made those available through his innovations. All his programs created a ‘matzav’ for the kids, offering enrichment and fulfillment and fun, through which they got more involved in Torah and Yiddishkeit.”

Chol Hamoed often found parents working and yeshivos closed. Taking children on Chol Hamoed trips was not widespread in the 1960s parenting psyche. The children, naturally, were bored. Eli Teitelbaum took in the situation and reacted. Signs were hung, buses ordered, parental permission and group tickets obtained, and the Pirchei Chol Hamoed trip was born. It was safe, it was constructive, it was active, and the kids loved it.

The Pirchei choir was another Eli Teitelbaum invention. A musician himself and very technically savvy, Eli worked on the song selection and logistics, with Eli Lipsker as producer and musical arranger. Choirs and singing became part of Pirchei. The children who took part were empowered with a special sense of accomplishment, while Eli, always an enthusiastic volunteer, carefully put aside the proceeds from the albums to fund the annual Pirchei Siyum Mishnayos arranged by Reb Josh Silvermintz.