Rabbi Moshe Gurkow, 90, Chassidic Firebrand in Boston

by Menachem Posner – chabad.org

As far as Jewish communities go, Boston has a certain vibe. Its members tend to be well-educated, genteel and perhaps a bit more cautious about standing out as Jews.

In the face of it all, Rabbi Moshe Gurkow, who passed away on Friday, 30th of Tishrei, Nov. 1, 2024, at the age of 90, stood in stark relief.

A product of Chabad-Lubavitch’s underground yeshivahs in the USSR, he was fearless as he was determined, a fiery brand of Chassidic inspiration that set countless souls aflame.

Moshe Yitzchak Gurkow was born in 1934 in Kharkov, USSR, one of six children of Rabbi Yaakov Yosef and Sonia Gurkow. The family was deeply ingrained in Chabad’s effort to sustain Jewish life and observance despite Stalin’s relentless persecution.

Even the 1939 arrest of Moshe’s grandfather, Rabbi Meir Gurkow, could not stop the family’s efforts. The family patriarch was charged with participating in an “anti-Soviet, nationalist organization of Jewish clerics;” collecting money to send to the “head of this organization, Schneersohn” [i.e. the Sixth Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory]; and in 1937 taking part in an “illegal meeting of yeshibotnikov [yeshivah activists].” He was tortured terribly, and served six years in prison and remote exile.

The increase of arrests and anti-Jewish persecution in Kharkov, was followed by the invasion of the USSR by the Nazis in 1941. As German troops advanced rapidly into Ukraine, the family fled to the central Asian city of Samarkand, which was a haven for thousands of Jewish refugees—most of them destitute. For the rest of Gurkow’s life, he would share harrowing memories of seeing people literally dying in the streets of hunger, exhaustion and disease.

There, young Moshe (known to his friends as “Maishke”) was educated in the illegal cheder operated by Chabad activists under the tutelage of Rabbi Moshe Rubinson.

New Beginnings Abroad

In 1946, following the end of the war, Polish refugees in the Soviet Union were allowed to repatriate themselves toPoland. Though the Chabad community was made up mostly of Russian-born Jews, an organized effort was made by the Chassidim to forge Polish identity papers and escape the USSR. The Gurkows were among the approximately 1,200 Chabad Chassidim to sneak over the border under assumed Polish identities.

After a stop in France, the family eventually made their way to London. At that time, there was no Chabad yeshivah in the United Kingdom and the sons of most Chabad families, including two of the three Gurkow boys, learned in a yeshivah in Manchester. But Moshe, who never veered from what he believed to be the correct path, said he preferred to study alone in an attic at home until his parents could gather the means to send him to the Chabad yeshivah in New York.

It took a full year for the funds and paperwork together. But finally, just in time for Sukkot of 1951, he docked in New York and made his way to 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn.

Upon seeing the newly appointed Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—he knew right then and there that he had found his life’s anchor. And so it was. He never returned to London and the Rebbe became a father figure for him, chiding him when his devotion to his studies caused him to neglect his health, advising him through the confusing teen years, and even suggesting a match for marriage.

One cold winter’s morning, not long after arriving in New York, the young yeshivah student was walking down Eastern Parkway without a coat. As Gurkow headed away from 770, he saw the Rebbe walking towards it. Seeing Gurkow without a coat, the Rebbe picked up his own coat lapel, wordlessly asking where Gurkow’s was. The yeshivah student shrugged his shoulders—there was no coat. Gurkow was horrified by what happened next: the Rebbe began taking off his own coat to give to him. Desperately not wanting to be the reason why the Rebbe would now be coatless, Gurkow motioned to the Rebbe that he did indeed have one, sprinted across the Parkway to a men’s mikvah, grabbed a coat from the rack, and ran back to show the Rebbe. He would later recall realizing then that he needed to get his own coat if he wanted to avoid the scene again.

Yeshivah friends from that time recall seeing Gurkow recite the evening Shema, an activity laced with introspection in Chabad tradition. His Shema would take many hours, and pools of tears would form on the floor around him.

At the same time, he was a person of action. After spending many hours every Shabbat in prayerful devotion, he would walk to another neighborhood to conduct a Mesibos Shabbos, gathering children for a “Shabbat party” that included a treat, a Chassidic story and songs.

And every Wednesday, he would dutifully troop out of the yeshivah to pick up some public school children and take them to a nearby synagogue for an hour of Torah study, prayer, and Jewish learning. This was part of the Released Time Program, which took advantage of the New York State Law, which mandates that children in public schools be allowed an hour a week of religious instruction.

Operated by the Chabad-affiliated NCFJE (National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education), or Shaloh in Hebrew, this was to be a major part of his life.

In the fall of 1959, he married Kreina Hurkow, his relative, and the young couple made their home in Boston, with the mandate of advancing Jewish education.

Seeing the success of the Released Time program in New York, he opened a branch of Shaloh in the then-heavily Jewish Mattapan section of Boston.

Boston: His Final Frontier

At first, things proved tough for the young rabbi, whose English was still lacking. As was common at the time, hyper-sensitive to any perceived breach of the separation of church and state, the boards of every synagogue he turned to refused to host the public-school children for an hour of religious instruction. This was just not the Boston way.

Finally, he was welcomed in by Rabbi Mordechai Savitsky, who opened the doors of his congregation, Chevra Shas, and served as a member of Shaloh’s board. Within a few years, in 1962, Shaloh managed to purchase its first building, a house at 63 Hillsboro Road in Mattapan.

After seven years of bringing Judaism to children in public schools, during which time he and his wife also opened a nursery school and summer camp, it became clear that there many of “their” families would consider transferring their children to a Jewish day school, should the conditions be right.

Despite a chronic lack of funds or communal backing, Gurkow forged ahead and in 1967 purchased a second location, in Milton, and opened a full Jewish day school. There he was tasked with filling many roles; serving as administrator, teacher, custodian, as well as bus driver.

Even though his “official” mandate was to educate children, that didn’t stop him from being a force of spiritual growth for the entire city.

“I remember seeing him in the back of the synagogue. He was burning up. He was a fire,” recalls Dr. Yaakov (“James”) Brawer, who was then completing his Ph.D. at Harvard University. Brawer eventually mustered up the courage to approach Gurkow, who offered to study Chabad Chassidus with him every Thursday night. “That was the beginning of everything for me. He changed my life, the way I see things, the way I learn Torah, the way I pray. He injected me with Chassidus.”

Brawer recalls that there were times when Gurkow appeared too exhausted from a long, hard day at school, but he never missed a study session, often staying to teach and answer questions until well after midnight.

But it was with children that his loyalties ultimately lay, Gurkow taking them as seriously as adults—perhaps even more so. One former student recalled as an eight-year-old bringing Gurkow a pushka, or charity box, filled with change. The rabbi carefully counted up every penny, and then filled out a formal receipt for $6.30.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Jews began trickling out of the Soviet Union, and the Gurkow residence became the address to which they turned in the Boston area.

Within a few years, the Shaloh House school became filled with newly-arrived Russian immigrants, and the institution still retains its Russian-Jewish flavor today.

This was further solidified when Gurkow added a synagogue to the burgeoning enterprise in memory of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, who passed away in 1988. In the 1990s Gurkow spearheaded the purchase of a new building in Brighton to which the synagogue moved, and where Shaloh House Jewish Day School remains to this day. His son, Rabbi Eliezer Gurkow, explains that one of his father’s biggest challenges in becoming a congregational rabbi was that he could no longer drive down to Brooklyn to spend Shabbat or Jewish holidays in the Rebbe’s presence.

Yet ever the soldier, he learned to embrace his new station in life and the spiritual opportunities it afforded him.

His unique approach to life, that of a footsoldier in the Rebbe’s army, was highlighted by Rabbi Naftali Yehuda Horowitz, the current Bostoner Rebbe, who recalled Gurkow as his first chumash teacher. “He was truly a chassid of the Rebbe, with his whole heart,” the Bostoner Rebbe said at his funeral. “Whatever he did, all he thought was, how would the Rebbe do this mission I am doing now?”

In addition to his wife, he is survived by his children: Rabbi Mendel Gurkow (Stoughton, Mass.); Rabbi Zalman Gurkow (Westford, Mass.); Feigy Bronstein (Andover, Mass.); Channy Wolowik (Toronto); Rabbi Lazer Gurkow (London, Ontario); Rabbi Meyer Gurkow (Brooklyn, N.Y.); Rabbi Velvel Gurkow (Montreal); and Sheina Silver (Brooklyn, N.Y.)

He is also survived by his siblings, Rabbi Sholom Ber Gurkow (Montreal); Mrs. Gittel Eidelman (Casablanca, Morocco); and Mrs. Fruma Piekarsky (Brooklyn, N.Y.)