January 21, 2022

The International Rabbinic Fellowship deeply mourns the passing of Rabbi Simcha Krauss zt"l this week in Yerushalayim.

Rabbi Krauss was a personal role model, teacher, and mentor to so many of our members and was one of the leading Modern Orthodox congregational rabbis and communal leaders of the last half century.. R. Krauss studied in his youth at Yeshivat Chaim Berlin, under the legendary Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner  zt"l, receiving semicha (Yoreh Deah and Yadin Yadin) and was a Torah scholar of note. He later studied for many years with Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zt"l and became a close student of his. He was a chevruta and life long friend of Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l. He served as a pulpit rabbi in St. Louis before moving to NY to serve as rabbi at the Young Israel of Hillcrest in Queens, NY for three decades.

He earned a master's degree from the New School of Social Research, served as a Maggid Shiur at Yeshiva University for two decades, and taught political science in a number of universities. He served as president of the Religious Zionists of America before making aliyah with his wife, Esther, in 2005. In Israel he served for many years as a senior scholar at Yeshivat Eretz HaTzvi.

Rabbi Krauss was a beloved communal rabbi and a champion of an engaged and compassionate Modern-Orthodoxy that was inclusive to women and their spiritual aspirations. In 2014, together with a number of committed lay leaders he established the International Beit Din to resolve difficult situations of agunot and agunim and provide rigorous halakhic solutions to end the scourge of gett abuse. R. Krauss was a gentle giant who was courageous and bold in leading communities and working to ensure a Torah of loving kindness and peace would be our guide.

May his distinguished and large family be comforted by the Almighty among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem