Courtesy of Wikipedia
Abba Hillel Silver (January 28, 1893 – November 28, 1963) was an American rabbi and Zionist leader. He was a key figure in the mobilization of American support for the founding of the State of Israel.
Born as Abraham Silver in Naumiestis, located in the Suwałki Governorate of Congress Poland, which was part of the Russian Empire (now in present-day Lithuania), he was the son and grandson of Orthodox rabbis and was brought to the United States at the age of nine. A Zionist from his youth, he made his first speech at a Zionist meeting at age fourteen. Educated in the public schools and after-school Jewish schools of New York City’s Lower East Side, he left after high school to attend the Hebrew Union College (HUC) and the University of Cincinnati. After graduating as valedictorian of his HUC class and his ordination in 1915—and now known as Abba Hillel Silver—he served as rabbi of a small congregation, Leshem Shomayim, in West Virginia (now Temple Shalom. In 1917, at age twenty-four, he became rabbi of The Temple–Tifereth Israel in Cleveland, Ohio, one of the nation’s largest and best-known Reform congregations, where he served for 46 years.
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Tomorrow, January 29: Yeshayahu Leibowitz