Baruch Sorotzkin

Who was Baruch Sorotzkin?

Rephoel Baruch Sorotzkin was the Rosh Yeshiva of the Telz Yeshiva in Cleveland and among American Jewry's foremost religious leaders.

Sorotzkin was born on February 5, 1917 in Zhetl, Lithuania. His father, Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin was the town's rabbi. As a young man, Sorotzkin studied under Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman in Baranovich, and then under Rabbi Baruch Ber Lebovitz in Kamenitz.

In 1940, Sorotzkin married Rochel Bloch, daughter of the Telzer Rav and Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Bloch. Rabbi Sorotzkin and his wife fled Europe at the start of World War II and made their way to the United States. There, they joined his wife's uncles Rabbi Eliyahu Meir Bloch and Rabbi Chaim Mordechai Katz who had re-established the Telz Yeshiva in Cleveland, Ohio.