Several hundred people gathered in Monsey, NY to say goodbye to a pillar of the Sullivan County community for over 50 years, a Rabbi who just celebrated his 99th birthday and was beloved by thousands whose hearts were touched by his kindness and warmth.  

Rabbi Shmuel Yosef Fishbain was born in Chicago in 1927 on the Jewish holiday of Shavuoth (also known as Pentecost), the day Jewish tradition ascribes as the day the Torah was given at Mount Sinai, to his parents Nochum Dov Fishbain, an immigrant from Ukraine, and Miriam Devorah Fishbain (née Cohen), a third-generation Chicago native.  

While Chicago had a large Jewish community at the time, Mr. Nochum Dov Fishbain saw that it was spiritually lacking and without a vision for the future; thus worked tirelessly to bring Orthodox Jewish education to the Jewish children of the city.  Overwhelmed by the disappointment of a lack of support from the community, Mr. Fishbain passed away at a young age, leaving his widow and many children behind.  

Rabbi Shmuel Fishbain said he learned how to read by reciting the Mourner's Kaddish (doxology) prayer for his father at 6 years of age.  To support herself, the widow Mrs. Fishbain opened the only strictly Kosher boarding house in Chicago, which hosted some of the most famous Rabbis visiting from Europe, including Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman of Baranovitch and Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneerson of Lubavitch, which gave Rabbi Shmuel Fishbain some of his earliest memories, which lasted a lifetime.  

With much self-sacrifice, Mrs. Fishbain sent her children to Brooklyn to study in Jewish Boarding Schools, and Rabbi Shmuel and his late brother Rabbi Avraham went to study in the famed Torah VoDaath Yeshivah.  

After studying in the Telshe Yeshivah in Cleveland, Rabbi Fishbain went to study at the advanced Netzach Yisrael Rabbinical Seminary in Brooklyn under the leadership of Rabbi Yisrael Gustman, where Rabbi Fishbain later served as a Professor of Talmud.

In the 1970s Rabbi Fishbain and his surviving widow, Rebbetzin Sarah Rivkah, moved to Sullivan County, where they would spend the rest of his life.  Rabbi Fishbain served as Rabbi in Congregation Anshei Hurleyville, and when a colleague of his who served as Rabbi in the White Lake Synagogue tragically passed away at a young age, the White Lake Congregation was so inspired by his oratory skills that they hired him as the new Rabbi of their synagogue in 1972.  At his installation dinner, Rabbi Fishbain quipped that the order of the speeches was by divine providence, and could have otherwise been catastrophic, as the town judge spoke, followed by the county sheriff, and then himself.  He said, "If it had been that he spoke first, then the judge, then the sheriff, he would have been before the judge, and the sheriff would have been after both of them!" The tone took a more somber tone when he compared himself to President Lyndon Johnson, who expressed that he would have given anything in the world to not replace President Kennedy in such a manner.  The large crowd was moved to both laughter and tears by their new rabbi.

Due to disagreements between the members of the congregation as to whether the existing synagogue should remain Orthodox or not, the congregation split and Congregation Beth Sinai was founded in 1975 by the community members who sought to maintain an Orthodox synagogue.  The split garnered wide attention, and a lawsuit by the previous synagogue, which Rabbi Fishbain's nascent congregation won in favor of Religious Freedoms.  

Contributed photo

Despite having a small sanctuary area, Rabbi Fishbain's synagogue attracted large crowds in the summer as well as year-round services that often hosted distinguished guests, including Rabbi Shlomo Halberstam, the saintly Bobover Rebbe, who would walk several miles on the Sabbath even at an elderly age in order to pray at Rabbi Fishbain's synagogue and to support his outreach efforts whenever he vacationed in White Lake in the off-season.  

Many congregants had their lives changed by Rabbi Fishbain's care and warmth, and many who had little connection to Judaism became devoutly Orthodox, and many became leaders of their own communities in Queens and Brooklyn through Rabbi Fishbain's influence.  Their annual dinner often attracted hundreds of participants, including local politicians.

Contributed photo

Rabbi Fishbain lived a charmed and miracle-filled life.  His efforts to fundraise to support the synagogue often led him to travel far and wide.  On September 11, 2001, he had an appointment to meet with a Mr. David Green at 8:30 a.m. after months of trying to arrange an appointment to meet with him.  When Rabbi Fishbain and his driver arrived, it was impossible to find parking, so they called Mr. Green and asked if he could meet them downstairs and they would drive him to a coffee shop for their meeting.  This saved both of their lives.

Rabbi and Rebbetzin Fishbain raised a large family in White Lake and touched the lives of thousands of people.  Rabbi Fishbain was also well loved by people of various backgrounds, not only the Jewish community, with strong and lasting friendships with many of the local town officials, especially former Bethel Town Supervisor Allan Scott and late former Bethel Highway Superintendent Linden Lilley.  When Allan Scott once visited Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum, the previous Satmar Rebbe, who was vacationing in the Town of Bethel, he asked the Rebbe if he knew Rabbi Fishbain, and the Rebbe, in his limited English, answered, "Yes, he is my friend."  In fact, in his youth, Rabbi Fishbain often prayed at the Rebbe's synagogue in Williamsburg.  

The local Cornelius Duggan school would often seek his counsel on how to discipline the students, which he delivered with care and gentle correction.  The Bethel Town Court would often seek his advice when dealing with matters of the Jewish community.  

His volunteer chaplaincy work at the Daytop Rehab Facility in Swan Lake changed the lives of many of the residents there.  Among the legendary stories was when one resident from Daytop was honored with binding the Torah scroll at a holiday service in the synagogue, and the next day he exclaimed, "Rabbi, yesterday you gave me the honor of binding the Torah, and I couldn't go to sleep last night until I bound the Torah to my heart!  Rabbi, please teach me Torah!"  

When a vacationer visited the synagogue approached the rabbi, saying he didn't really know how to pray in Hebrew, Rabbi Fishbain hugged him and answered in his humility, "That makes two of us," depite being a skilled liturgical leader.  This man soon became very pious and a pillar both of our synagogue as well as a lay leader in a prominent Hasidic synagogue in Queens.

Contributed photo

The author of this article was a teenager living on a farm in the vicinity of Callicoon, NY, attending Delaware Valley Central School, and in 1998 first met Rabbi Fishbain when my mother brought me to the synagogue, which she found in the phone book, on the holiday of Purim, a little over a year after my own Bar Mitzvah and several months after losing my grandfather.  I was taken away by the simple structure, feeling I had been transported back to an old Shtetel in Europe like I was reading about at the time from books I often read at the Callicoon Library.  Rabbi and Rebbetzin Fishbain took me in as a member of their own family.  They helped me to transfer into a Yeshivah High School in Queens, came to the airport singing and dancing as I was boarding a plane to study in a Yeshivah in Jerusalem, and were constantly in contact when I attended a Jewish college in Queens, and Rabbi Fishbain walked me down the aisle at my wedding.  After I served several years as a Rabbi in Richmond, Virginia, I relocated to Sullivan County and moved to White Lake, where I have served as assistant rabbi to Rabbi Fishbain since 2011.  

Rabbi Fishbain was featured in national and international Jewish magazines, and was a regular guest on local Sullivan County radio, last being interviewed by WJFF in 2020.  I was worthy to capture over 800 of Rabbi Fishbain's sermons and post them on my YouTube channel over the years.

Rabbi Fishbain will be remembered for his wisdom, erudition, scholarship, warmth, oratory skills, musical gifts and sharp sense of humor.  Rabbi Fishbain came into this world on the holiday of the giving of the Torah, and left this world 99 years later a few days after we celebrated this same holiday.  The Talmud says we may cancel scheduled Torah study to attend to the needs of a funeral, but then proceeds to ask how many people are needed at a funeral.  The Rabbis answer that 600,000 are needed for a funeral, just as when the Torah was given there were 600,000 witnesses, so too when Torah leaves the world, and thus is the ruling for any pious individual who devoted time to study the Bible and Mishnah.  However, says the Talmud, if someone taught others Torah, there is no limit to the amount of people needed to attend the funeral.  So too here, just as when the Torah was given on Shavuos, so too when it is taken away.  May Rabbi Fishbain's legacy of Torah and piety continue to inspire his family and many students, and may his memory be a blessing.

Joseph Kolakowski (@RabbiKolakowski on X @RabbiKolakowski on YouTube) is a Rabbi in White Lake, NY.