Picture of the Day

Update by Rabbi Chaim Dalfin:

The person in the picture is HaRav Grainom Lazewnik, 102, the last real Novordok student. Here are some more details about him from my book, Rabbi Hutner and Rebbe:

I am humbled and honored to include his interview because he was our high school Dikduk, Hebrew grammar teacher at the Lubavitcher yeshiva on Ocean Parkway, between the years of 1974-1978. I remember him as a highly disciplined person with a heavy Litvish accent. Having a “Litvak” as a teacher in a Lubavitch yeshiva was a novelty. He was an excellent teacher and I still remember things he taught us, making it easier for us to follow the Dikduk rules.

Besides him being a Congregational rabbi and a high school teacher, he also earned a doctoral degree from NYU.

“For the first time in its 139-year history. New York University has awarded a doctoral degree to a student who wrote his dissertation in Hebrew. Rabbi Grainom Lazewnik a native of Poland who came to this country in 1946, wrote his thesis on a Talmudic subject–another first at NYU. A resident of Brooklyn, Dr. Lazewnik, analyzed a medieval Hebrew manuscript, using a microfilm copy of the original European document brought to New York University’s Library of Judaica and Hebraica, and concluded that it is a commentary on the 11th-century Rif Code on the Sanhedrin rather than on the original text of the Talmud as had been believed by many scholars prior to his study. Dr. Lazewnik, who received his degree from NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science, did his research in the School’s Institute of Hebrew Studies under the direction of Dr. David Rudavsky, the Institute’s acting director.”

From the JTA’s announcement, November 27, 1970