"With the sudden, tragic death of Rabbi Yosef Adler, American Jewry lost one of its talented and productive personalities"
Not long after the 1929 founding of Mesivta Tifereth Jerusalem on the Lower East Side, Rav Yosef Adler was hired as the menahel. Born in Kletzk, he had studied in Volozhin and Eishyshok, where his vast Torah knowledge earned him the title “Kletzker Illui.” He also studied at the Kovno Kollel before immigrating to the United States with his family in 1912.
Rav Yisroel Belsky related that his father, Rav Beryl, counted Rav Yosef Adler among the great gedolim of the time. Rav Adler was involved in the hiring of Rav Moshe Feinstein — his cousin — at MTJ. One of Rav Moshe’s early students recounted how Rav Adler introduced him in 1938: “Whenever we needed a rosh yeshivah, I brought a great talmid chacham from Europe. After a while, you grew in Torah and needed a bigger rosh yeshivah. I’m not getting younger, so I decided to bring you a rosh yeshivah who would know enough no matter how much you grow in learning.”
He couldn’t have been more correct.
Rav Adler spent his summers in the Rockaways, where he’d rise for an early ocean swim before beachgoers arrived. One Friday a freak storm hit while he was swimming. Struggling amid the heavy winds and torrential rain, he suffered a heart attack and perished. His talmidim penned a moving eulogy:
With the sudden, tragic death of Rabbi Yosef Adler, rav of the Slonimer shul and rosh yeshivah of Mesivta Tifereth Jerusalem, American Jewry lost one of its talented and productive personalities. His educational philosophy was that not only must students be taught the information, they must also be given the tools to go ahead and study on their own. Indeed, many of his students have become leading rabbis and lay leaders, a tribute to Yiddishkeit in America….
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