Harry Fischel

Harry Fischel (1865 - 1948) was an American businessman and philanthropist based in New York City at the turn of the 20th century.

Fischel was one of the leading pioneers in the growth of American Judaism, in general, and in American Jewish Orthodoxy, in particular, particularly in the dynamic precedent-setting first half of the 20th Century.

Yisroel Aaron Fischel (later known as Harry) was born on July 19, 1865, in the small, isolated Russian town of Meretz to poor but pious parents. He became an architect and a builder at 19, emigrated to America virtually penniless at 20 (after giving most of his earnings to his parents who remained in Russia), and earned his first million in real estate at a young age, but sent money home to help support his parents in Russia even before he was earning $10 per week in America.

Fischel was active in matters concerning Jewish interests in the USA and Mandatory Palestine, including support for religious institutions and facilities such as Jewish schools and colleges, synagogues and kosher food kitchens, as well as various support for the Jewish worldwide community, with a focus on Jewish immigrants to the US and Mandate Palestine.

It should be noted at the outset that the following list does not mention all of the organizations that Fischel played a role in.

Among his numerous distinctions were his service as the Treasurer of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), beginning in 1890; a director of the Beth Israel Medical Center in 1891 (credited with laying the groundwork for its kosher policy up to and including the present); Vice-President of the Hebrew Free Loan Societies; Vice President of the Beth Israel Medical Center in 1900; Vice President of the Beth Hamedrash Hagadol on the Lower East Side, until he moved to Park Avenue in 1902; builder of the first modern Jewish theater in 1904 (exclusively for productions in Yiddish); charter member of the American Jewish Committee in 1906; prevailed on his co-founders to designate him to chair its second annual luncheon, to assure it and its future events would be kosher; personally prevailed on President Taft to install a kosher kitchen at Ellis Island in 1911, so that Orthodox Jewish immigrants could have the opportunity to eat kosher food during a probation period, thus becoming strong enough to pass the test to avoid deportation; President of the Uptown Talmud Torah in Manhattan in 1911 (in one of the first structures in New York built exclusively for this purpose, and then widely considered "the most important Jewish educational institution in America"); first Treasurer of the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War, in 1914; member of the Executive Committee of the Joint Distribution Committee in 1914; organizer of the Palestine Building Loan Association in 1921; builder of a home, office, yeshiva and synagogue for the Chief Rabbi of Palestine Abraham Isaac Kook at his own expense in 1923; he established the Harry Fischel Institute for Talmudic Research in 1931 (which, after the creation of the country of Israel, trained, for many years, a large percentage of the judges who presided over the religious courts in the country); established the Harry Fischel Foundation on January 4, 1932 (later renamed the Harry & Jane Fischel Foundation).

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