Yaakov Avigdor (1896–1967) was a Polish

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 rabbi

Rabbi

In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

, author and Holocaust survivor, who served as Chief Rabbi

Chief Rabbi

Chief Rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities...

 of the Ashkenazi Jewish community in Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

.

Life

He was born into a rabbinic family in Tyrawa Wołoska, a shtetl

Shtetl

A shtetl was typically a small town with a large Jewish population in Central and Eastern Europe until The Holocaust. Shtetls were mainly found in the areas which constituted the 19th century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Galicia and Romania...

 in the Austrian province of Galicia between the cities of Sanok

Sanok

Sanok is a town in south-eastern Poland with 39,110 inhabitants, as of 2 June 2009. It's the capital of Sanok County in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship. Previously, it was in the Krosno Voivodeship and in the Ruthenian Voivodeship , which was part of the Lesser Poland province...

 and Przemyśl

Przemysl

Przemyśl is a city in south-eastern Poland with 66,756 inhabitants, as of June 2009. In 1999, it became part of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship; it was previously the capital of Przemyśl Voivodeship....

 (now southeast Poland) in 1896. He excelled in religious studies and was ordained at the young age of 16 years. Later he attended the universities of Kraków

Kraków

Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

 and Lviv

Lviv

Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...

, obtaining a PhD

PHD

PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 in Philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

. Acquiring a high reputation as an orator and Talmudist, he was named Chief Rabbi of Drohobych

Drohobych

Drohobych is a city located at the confluence of the Tysmenytsia River and Seret, a tributary of the former, in the Lviv Oblast , in western Ukraine...

 and Boryslav

Boryslav

Boryslav is a city located on the Tysmenytsia River , in the Lviv Oblast of western Ukraine. The city is designated as a separate raion within the oblast....

, then in southeast Poland (now western Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

), in 1920, where he officiated until the Nazi occupation.

During the Holocaust, he lost his wife, his two daughters and his brother David the Rabbi of Andrychów

Andrychów

Andrychów is the largest town in Wadowice County in southern Poland with 22,257 inhabitants as of 2006. It has been situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999. Previously, it was located in Bielsko-Biała Voivodeship...

, among many family members. After his liberation from the Buchenwald concentration camp

Buchenwald concentration camp

Buchenwald concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil.Camp prisoners from all over Europe and Russia—Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes,...

, Avigdor became extremely active in the efforts of rescue and rehabilitation of Jewish refugees in postwar Europe. Upon immigrating to the U.S. in 1946, he accepted a pulpit in Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, and six years later he was offered the rabbinate of Mexico, holding that position until his death in Mexico City

Mexico City

Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

 in 1967.

Avigdor was much consulted on religious

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

 and ethical

Ethics

Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

 questions by worldwide peers. A prolific writer, his topics included religious philosophy, Jewish history and tradition

Tradition

A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...

s, and commentary on biblical

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 text. Most of his prewar works were lost. In Mexico, he became a regular contributor to Yiddish

Yiddish language

Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...

 periodicals, and published books in that language, Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 and Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

.

Works

• Torat Hatalmud -1928 (Polish, with subsequent Hebrew and German
  German language
  German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
  
   editions, three volumes)
• Chelek Yacov - 1929 (Hebrew)
• Metafizyka Judaismu -1931 (Polish, Doctorate Thesis, Lviv University
  Lviv University
  The Lviv University or officially the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv is the oldest continuously operating university in Ukraine...
  
  )
• Haemunah V'haphilosophia‡ -1933 (Polish)
• Sheelot Utshuvot Abir Yacov -1934 (Hebrew, two volumes)
• Harambam V'shitato B'philosophia‡ -1935 (Polish)
• Ayeh Sofer -1937 (Hebrew)
• Torat Halashon -1938 (Hebrew)
• Sheelot Utshuvot Heshiv Yacov -1939 (Hebrew)
• Al Hashchitah‡ - 1939 (Polish)
• Techiyat Yacov -1950 (Hebrew)
• La Cronología Judaica -1954 (Spanish)
• Maimónides, su Vida y Obra -1955 (Spanish)
• [Chelek Yacov Aleph - 1956 reprint of Chelek Yacov]
• [Chelek Yacov Bet - 1956 reprint of Ayeh Sofer and Techiyat Yacov].
• Kuntres Kol Yacov -1956 (Hebrew)
• Shevichtav V'sheval Peh (In Shrift Un Vort) - 1957 (Yiddish, volumes I and II) and 1958 (Yiddish, volume III)
• La Vision del Judaismo -1959 (Spanish, two volumes)
• Machshoveh V'loshn (Gedank Un Shprach) -1959 (Yiddish)
• Reflexiones Sobre la Torá -1960 (Spanish)
• Dee Yiddishe Froy/La Mujer Judía - 1960 (Yiddish and Spanish)
• Hegyon Yacov -1962 (Yiddish, two volumes)
• Torah Sh’veal Peh -1962 (Yiddish, volume I) and 1963 (Yiddish, volume II)
• Haskel V'yadoa -1962 (Hebrew, volumes I and II) and 1963 (Hebrew, volume III)
• Der Yiddisher Shabos/El Sabado Judío -1963 (Yiddish and Spanish)
• Haemuna Hanotzrit L'or Hahalacha Hayehudit -1964 (Hebrew)
• Oifzatzn Un Esayen -1965 (Yiddish)
• Mikdash Meat -1965 (Hebrew)
• Mul Baayot Hador -1965 (Hebrew, volume I) and 1966 (Hebrew, volume II)
• Síntesis del Talmud: Exposición de su Desarrollo Histórico -1966 (Spanish, two volumes)

(‡ Hebrew translation of the Polish title)

External links

• The Religious Life of the Jews of Drohobycz(Avigdor is mentioned in the fifth paragraph).
• History of the Jews of Boryslaw (Avigdor is mentioned in last two paragraphs).
• The Jewish Party in the Drohobych City Council of 1932 (Avigdor's picture is shown on Plate VIII, third photograph).
• "Faith After the Flames: The Story of Rabbi Dr. Yaakov Avigdor," (Book Review).