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Rabbi Shemen - Jul. 1991
- Name
- Rabbi Shemen
- Material Format
- sound recording
- Interview Date
- Jul. 1991
- Source
- Oral Histories
- Name
- Rabbi Shemen
- Number
- OH 284
- Interview Date
- Jul. 1991
- Quantity
- 1
- AccessionNumber
- 2004-1-4
- Total Running Time
- 60 min or less
- Biography
- Rabbi Nachman Shemen was a talmudic scholar, journalist, scholar, teacher, “mediator par excellence,” and the author of more than twenty books. His contribution to Jewish scholarship included interpretations on biblical, talmudic, rabbinic, and literary studies. The two volumes, published in Tel Aviv in Yiddish, discuss issues that date back to the creation and the Book of Genesis up to more recent current day controversial issues as conversion and assimilation.
- The rabbinic scholar was born in Chodel, Poland, a small town near Lublin, just before the outbreak of the First World War. Shemen's great-grandfather was a disciple of the founder of Hasidism in Poland, the “Seer of Lublin.” Both his parents were descendants of chassidism and scholars. When he was just over seventeen years old, he received rabbinic ordination, and In 1930, moved to Canada with his family.
- A founder of COR the Kashruth supervisory body, Shemen made COR one of the largest and most respected kosher organizations in North America. For over 40 years, Shemen served as director of the Kashruth Council and Rabbinical Vaad Hakashruth of the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Toronto Jewish Congress. He was one of the founders of Congregation Torah V’Avoda and was associated with the Eitz Chaim Schools where he taught for over 25 years. He was a longtime contributor to Yiddish newspapers and wrote many articles, sometimes using the pseudonym “A Reporter,” on Jewish issues and about the early Jewish community of Toronto. He died in 1993.
- Material Format
- sound recording
- Language
- Yiddish
- Name Access
- Shemen, Nachman, 1912-1993
- Original Format
- Audio cassette
- Source
- Oral Histories