Quick Facts
Biography
Pinchas Mordechai Teitz (1908-1995) was a prominent Orthodox rabbi, educator and radio broadcaster in Elizabeth, N.J.
Personal life
He was born on the 7 Tamuz 1908 in Riga (the capital of Latvia) to Rabbi Avraham Binyamin (1873-1956) and Sheina Sira (d. 1956). Teitz was educated in Lithuanian yeshivos. He came to the United States in 1933 and married Bessie (Basya) Preil, daughter of Elozor Mayer Preil, the rabbi of what was then a small Orthodox community in Elizabeth.
Teitz was survived by one son, Rabbi Elazar Mayer Teitz, five daughters, a brother, a sister, 20 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. His wife died in 1993. Since he passed away after Shkia, his Yartzeit is the 4th of Teves.
Career
Teitz made 22 trips to the former Soviet Union, beginning in 1964, where he aided Soviet Jewry. Teitz's visits were during the height of the Communist empire and its secret police. He secured permission for his visits. He had good contacts in the government, and they trusted him. He left his papers to the Archive of the American Soviet Jewry Movement (AASJM). He served on the presidium of Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada.
Radio program
In 1953, he started a Yiddish-language Gemara radio program that lasted 36 years. It covered a page per week, and became known as Daf HaShavua (page of the week).
Schools
The New York Times called him a "Founder of Schools" - some named after him:
- Jewish Educational Center (JEC) of Elizabeth, 1941; 900 students as of Rabbi Teitz' passing, including Yeshiva Ketana, plus separate high schools for boys and for girls. The boys' high school was founded 1955, and operates under the umbrella of JEC. The girls' high school was founded 1963. The "high school" grades for both the boys (today called Rav Teitz Mesivta Academy) and the girls (Bruriah School for Girls) schools are grades 7-12. Both genders are together in the Nursery thru the grade's Yeshiva of Elizabeth.
- A Kollel named Yeshivas Be'er Yitzchok is "for post-graduate men's Torah study".
- The Abrams School - founded by a student he mentored who molded this school on the basis of the "Three L" system of teaching that Rabbi Teitz's daughter Rivka Teitz Blau documented in her Learn Torah, Love Torah, Live Torah: HaRav Mordechai Pinchas Teitz. This student became the principal, Rabbi Ira Budow.