Gentle and Unbending

In interactions with him, he gave the impression of a European-born gadol, steeped in the great Lithuanian yeshivos. But the truth was that he finished public high school in Newark and graduated from RIETS with a French Prize.

So where did he come from, and how did he become a major talmid chacham who was intimately familiar with every nook and cranny of Torah?

I suppose it began with his rebbeim, whose waters he drank deeply.

He would always speak especially fondly of his first rebbi, Rav Yaakov Ben Zion HaKohein Mendelson, who was the chief rabbi of Newark. A musmach of the Rogatchover Gaon, Rav Mendelson was a force to be reckoned with, a strong leader who founded many communal institutions in what was then a major Jewish community. Rav Mendelson recognized the potential in young Gedalia Dov, and the two learned Gemara, halachah, and mussar for two hours every day until the rav’s passing in 1941.