Klal Yisroel has lost one of its most experienced Rebbeim. Rabbi Baruch Pollack was niftar Motzei Shabbos HaGadol at the age of 92 in Yerushalayim. Rabbi Pollack had been a 1st grade Rebbe for over 60 years. He started in Yeshiva of Lubovitch in the Bronx and then taught in Yeshiva of Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn and Yeshiva Mercaz HaTorah (RJJ) in Staten Island. Rabbi Pollack was extremely beloved by 3 generations of students and their parents.
They appreciated his tremendous devotion and tireless dedication to his “boyalach” as he called them. His excitement for the chumosh and other Torah subjects he taught was contagious. It’s no wonder that so many of his students remember him as being the best Rebbe/teacher they ever had. He had a profound influence on thousands of students and gave the boys a solid basis to love their learning and Yiddishkeit. Rabbi
Pollack was born in 1927 in Brownsville, Brooklyn. He was an orphan from birth(his father died when his mother was yet pregnant with him).
He was called to the Torah as Baruch ben Baruch and used to quip to the gabbai he got the name backward! After receiving semicha from Rav Hutner in Yeshiva Chaim Berlin, he and his family moved to East Flatbush where he helped found and was very active in
Rav Asher Zimmerman’s Young Israel of Remsen. He was an expert Baal Tokea and on Rosh Hoshana would go to nearby Brookdale Hospital to blow shofer for the patients. Later, the family moved to Flatbush where he continued to use his talents as gabbai in Rav Poupko’s shul.
Anyone who came in contact with him appreciated his sharp wit and “vertlach” that he enjoyed sharing. In addition, he was the executive director of Y.I. of Bedford Bay where he ran a Talmud Torah and summer camp. There too, he influenced many children to come closer to Torah. Many of his talmidim, from both the yeshivos and Talmud Torah, are today great mechanchim themselves who have continued in Rabbi Pollack’s footsteps. He lived his final year in the Ramot neighborhood of Yerushalayim and merited burial in Eretz Yisroel. He is survived by his devoted wife of 71 years as well as 3 sons, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
