Shlomo Carlebach (mashgiach ruchani)
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- Note: See Shlomo Carlebach for the aricle about the "singing rabbi".
Shlomo Carlebach (Salomon Peter Carlebach) (b. August 17, 1925 in Hamburg, Germany), (not to be confused with his cousin and namesake) is a Haredi rabbi and scholar who was chosen to be the mashgiach ruchani ("spiritual advisor" [of students]) of the Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin located in Brooklyn, in New York City after the departure of the previous mashgiach ruchani Rabbi Avigdor Miller. Rabbi Carlebach served as mashgiach ruchani of the yeshiva and Kollel Gur Aryeh (its post-graduate division) from 1966 to 1978, when he was succeeded by Rabbi Shimon Groner another of Rabbi Hutner's trusted disciples.
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[edit] Family history
His father was Rabbi Dr. Joseph Carlebach, director of the Talmud Torah school at Hamburg (1925-1927), chief rabbi of Altona (1927-36) and the last chief rabbi of Hamburg (1936-1941). Joseph Carlebach is still held in great honour by the city of Hamburg and its remaining Jewish community. Part of the university campus in Hamburg was named as the Joseph-Carlebach-Platz since 1990. Upon his 120th birthday in 2003, a Joseph-Carlebach-Preis award was established for Jewish studies, given every two years, by the State University of Hamburg.
[edit] The Holocaust
The Jewish community and its leading rabbi were deported 1941 from Hamburg to the Jungfernhof concentration camp near Riga in Latvia. Shlomo's father Rabbi Joseph, his mother Charlotte and his sisters Ruth, Noemi and Sara were murdered in a forest near Riga, Latvia in 1942. Shlomo, being the youngest son, survived the Holocaust suffering four years of internment in nine different concentration camps. His older five sisters and brothers were sent to England by their parents and survived the Holocaust and the war.
Rabbi Carlebach has not written about those years, but he talked with the authors of the book Die Carlebachs, eine Rabbinerfamilie aus Deutschland ("The Carlebachs, a Family of Rabbis from Germany", Ephraim-Carlebach-Stiftung[-Foundation] Edit: Dölling & Galitz. Hamburg 1995 ISBN 3-926174-99-4, in german language) about his father and the time in the concentration camps. (Some details are in the German Wiki Konzentrationslager Jungfernhof.)
[edit] Yeshiva in America
After the war Rabbi Carlebach was accepted as a student at the Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin where he became one of the closest disciples of its rosh yeshiva Rabbi Yitzchok Hutner. So much so, that Rabbi Carlebach was selected to write the brief welcoming introductions in Rabbi Hutner's works, the Pachad Yitzchok where he would sign himself as שלמה בן הרב ר' יוסף צבי הי"ד קרליבך : "Shlomo (Solomon) the son of Yosef Tzvi may God avenge his blood Carlebach"
Rabbi Carlebach was serving as a high school teacher of Torah studies and Talmud in the Yeshiva of Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, when Rabbi Hutner called on him to become the new mashgiach ruchani of the yeshiva following the departure and long tenure of Rabbi Avigdor Miller in that position.
For most of his tenure Rabbi Carlebach was an extremely successful mashgiach ruchani and began to develop a series of lectures that he eventually published, first in pamphlet form and later in a full series that he would call Maskil Lishlomo.
[edit] Last years at Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin
Rabbi Hutner had always wanted to move to Israel to establish a new yeshiva and, because he had only one daughter, Rebbetzin Bruria David who had no children of her own who would be going with her father, Rabbi Hutner planned to leave the yeshiva he headed in Brooklyn (Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin and Kollel Gur Aryeh) to his disciples who were to remain behind. The designated new rosh yeshiva ("dean") was to be Rabbi Aaron Schecter and it was assumed that Rabbi Carlebach would continue as the official mashgiach ruchani. However, about three years prior to Rabbi Hutner's death in 1980 a serious dispute arose between Rabbi Carlebach and Rabbi Hutner and his disciples. The end of this internal struggle resulted in Rabbi Carlebach being denied access to the yeshiva. However he refused to relinquish the title of mashgiach ruchani. Rabbi Carlebach attempted to bring the termination of his employement and the manner in which it was done to adjudication with various batei din ("Jewish religious courts") but Rabbi Hutner maintained that he was not subject to such proceedings in this instance and that has been the position of his designated heirs who took complete control of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin following Rabbi Hutner's death in 1980.
[edit] Author and lecturer
Following his departure from his former yeshiva, Rabbi Carlebach set about lecturing at various Bais Yaakov schools and seminaries for young women. His eloquent speaking style won him a wide audience and he began to record and sell recorded tapes of his lectures. However, he began to pour the bulk of his energies into writing his life's work in Hebrew, which was to become the five volumed Maskil Lishlomo on the Humash (Pentateuch) that incorporated much of Rabbi Hutner's thought system in the ten volume Pachad Yitzchok.
[edit] Family
A number of Rabbi Carlebach's children are mostly Orthodox rabbis or married to rabbis. His eldest daughter is Professor Elisheva Carlebach who specializes in Jewish history. His sister Professor Dr. Miriam Gillis-Carlebach is today Head of the Joseph Carlebach Institute of the Bar-Ilan-University, Ramat Gan (Israel).
