We join with Klal Yisrael in mourning the passing of Rabbi Abraham B. Hecht.
Rabbi Hecht, the longtime president of the Igud Harabbonim/Rabbinical Alliance of America, with a membership of more than 800 rabbis from the United States, Canada and Israel, was a man of many accomplishments. Rabbi Gershon Tannenbaum details some of them in his My Machberes feature on page 26.
Rabbi Hecht was known for his devotion to shleimut ha’aretz – that belief that all parts of our ancestral home – promised by God to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – must remain eternally in Jewish hands. As such he was close to Israel’s chief rabbis, past and present.
Yet Rabbi Hecht was equally devoted to the Jewish communities of America, especially Brooklyn’s Syrian community, which he not only served for more than fifty years as rabbi of Cong. Sha’are Zion on Ocean Parkway in Flatbush, but actually played a major role in helping build from the ground up.
May his memory be a blessing – yehi zichro baruch.