London Bridge

Back in the 1970s, before “kiruv” was a job with a salary, Rabbi Joseph Freilich a”h gave up his profession as a pharmacist in order to teach the hundreds of secular Jewish students who passed through his portals. Ever charming yet pushy when it came to getting people in the door, he knew that once they tasted Torah, they’d be hooked. Memories of the rabbi who never gave up

Rabbi Joseph Freilich a”h had two great loves: learning Torah and teaching it. Beginning in the 1970s, he was often the first point of contact to a Torah life for thousands of young men and women in London. Charming and unfazed by rejection, he would approach assimilated Jewish students and professionals and encourage them to try out a little Jewish learning, promising that they would know Hebrew after his 12-session crash course and have basic Gemara skills after his beginner’s class. What was the secret of this special rebbi who chose kiruv as a full-time job long before international organizations offered the security of paid employment in the field?

Chaim (Christopher) Phillips, who was an editor at The New York Times for 23 years, is one person who was transformed after taking up the offer of this one-man kiruv institution. Manhattan-born Chaim was 32 when he met Rabbi Freilich in 1983, having arrived in London after spending the last 14 years between Los Angeles, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India and a few other places. He’d arrived in England for his dream job as an editor at The Telegraph Sunday Magazine.

“But today I know that the real reason I came to London was to meet Rabbi Freilich and to start on a proper Jewish education — something I had always wanted but never had,” he says, remembering the man who changed his life ten years after Rabbi Freilich passed away on 29 Teves, 5772 (January 2012).