My Friend Reb Yudke

On erev Yom Kippur like a bolt out of the blue came the terrible news of the sudden untimely passing of Rabbi Yehudah Paley zichrono levrachah and with it came a flood of memories. Not memories of isolated moments a vignette here and another there but a whole unified life story. All those vignettes joined together into a sparkling mosaic and the picture that was formed showed a unique and wonderful life. A vibrant pulsing picture overflowing with love of Torah and with total dedication to acts of chesed. The fascinating life story of a very special colorful personality now ascended to the Upper World immediately unfurled before my eyes…

Everybody seemed to know Yudke as he was affectionately called. He had a powerful presence you couldn’t easily escape from and a charming gracious smile that never left his face. Even his opponents — and he did have opponents — could never oppose him all the way because he radiated love and goodness of heart upon everyone who came near him. I first met him when we were both young bochurim learning in Yeshivas Kol Torah which at that time was located in an old building built by the British on the corner of Keren HaYesod and Ussishkin. Later our paths crossed again occasionally under various circumstances. But even during the years when I was out of touch with him I still kept hearing about Yudke. He was always shaking things up in the chareidi world whether it was a project on behalf of children something for the benefit of lomdei Torah or some new idea to help anyone who was suffering anyone who needed help. And we met again some twenty years ago when he founded the original Hebrew Mishpachah magazine. He carried Mishpachah on his shoulders for many years and it was he who first conceived the idea of putting out an English version of the magazine as well.

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Much will no doubt be said in weeks to come about his many activities and endeavors. But even now in the midst of these days of sorrow and mourning for his passing stories are surfacing from every sector of religious Jewry memories of the battles he fought for Torah or testimonies of the times he stood at the side of some exploited individual and saved him from his oppressors all sharing a common theme: love of Torah and love of all Jews no matter where they’re holding.

Reb Yudke was a wandering Jew always being uprooted and transplanting himself anew. And everywhere he left a positive imprint. He established Torah mosdos everywhere which are still flourishing today although few know that Rabbi Yehuda Paley was behind the founding of these institutions. Fleeing from honor was a hallmark of his character. But much will soon be heard about this as well. About his work in Teveriah for youth at risk about his visionary plan to establish a center of Torah education called Achuzat Naftali in the lower Galilee a part of Eretz Yisrael that was spiritually barren at that time. About the yeshivah he established in Ashdod for Bucharian immigrant children and the kollel he set up when he took up residence in Jerusalem’s Old City; the little-known story of his early patronage of Yeshivas Aish HaTorah and his role in getting that institution into its place of distinction overlooking the Western Wall and the Temple Mount. He had a hand — and a foot too — in the well-known Zilberman institutions. He did so much that one can only think that the need to move his residence from one city to another was decreed from On High for the sake of increasing Torah study in every part of Eretz Yisrael.