1917—April 14, 2010
Rabbi Dr. Bernard Poupko, a nationally prominent Orthodox rabbi recognized for his initiatives in saving Soviet Jewry, pioneering efforts in the Jewish day school movement, and for his leadership of religious Zionism, died April 14 in Seattle, where he had lived for the last six years. He was 93 years old and succumbed to Alzheimer’s.
At the time of his death, Rabbi Poupko was rabbi emeritus of Shaare Torah Congregation in Pittsburgh, Pa., where he served as rabbi from 1941-2004. He was a former national president of the Religious Zionists of America and a national vice-president of the Rabbinical Council of America. Rabbi Poupko was influential in building the Jewish community in Pittsburgh, serving as president of its rabbinical council from 1949-1999, co-founding Hillel Academy, the Holocaust Center, and the Greater Association of Pittsburgh Rabbis, as well as supporting other Jewish institutions there.
Born in Velizh, a town in Smolensk Oblast, Russia in 1917, Rabbi Poupko was known to refer to himself in humor as “a child of the revolution.” The fifth of eight children born to the late Rabbi Eliezer Poupko, the town’s religious leader, and Pesha Chaya Sapir, a renowned Talmud scholar, Rabbi Poupko became sensitized from a young age to the implications that the Bolshevik Revolution had for religious observance. The scope became clear when his father was twice arrested and tried by the Communists and sentenced to years of hard labor in Siberia for his leadership in upholding Jewish practice in the town.
In 1930, by rowboat in the middle of the night, the family escaped and made their way to the home of the Hafetz Hayyim, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan, in Radun, Poland. There, Rabbi Poupko and his family were reunited with his three older brothers, who had been sent there nine years earlier to study Torah. Rabbi Poupko often recalled the life-shaping moment when the Hafetz Hayyim turned to him and said, “In Russia, the Communists prevented you from studying Torah. Now you must devote the rest of your life to plumbing its depths and spreading its word.”
From Poland the family, with help from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, secured visas to the United States and immigrated here in 1931.
Rabbi Poupko studied at Yeshiva College, City College and Columbia University, receiving his B.A. and M.A., as well as his rabbinic ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University in 1941. He moved to Pittsburgh, and become rabbi of Shaare Torah Congregation and married the late Gilda Twersky-Novoseller Poupko. By 1952 Rabbi Poupko had earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. He wrote his dissertation on the state of Jewish adult education in the U.S., tracing its history, studying its trends, and prescribing its future.
Although Rabbi Poupko escaped Communism, he felt his escape was less a privilege and more a responsibility. His synagogue, therefore, was the first to hang a “Free Soviet Jewry” sign, and he was the first rabbi to speak publicly in Moscow under Soviet rule. He risked his life, being tracked by the KGB when he traveled to Russia a dozen times to campaign for the liberation of Soviet Jewry and bear witness to their plight. Due in no small part to these efforts, more than one and a half million Soviet Jews emigrated to Israel and the United States.
Rabbi Poupko’s efforts to save Soviet Jewry are recounted in his award-winning Yiddish book, In the Shadow of the Kremlin, as well as in dozens of newspaper articles that he wrote. He also edited and co-edited 38 sermon manuals for the Rabbinical Council of America, many of which include his own sermons.
Rabbi Poupko’s articles and sermons took on a progressive, tolerant and visionary tone, often calling for activism in upholding social justice, understanding of difference and confidence in the Jewish future.
Rabbi Poupko is survived by his wife, Miriam Bak-Poupko, five children, among them Rivy Poupko Kletenik of Seattle, 28 grandchildren and 41 great-grandchildren. Rabbi Poupko instilled within his family a deep love for the people Israel, the noble notion of community service, and devotion to the State of Israel.
He is remembered for his stirring eloquence, buoyant optimism, and enduring dignity. More than anything else, Rabbi Poupko’s life was marked by a deep concern for the human-other in service, of the divinely Other, and commitment to mending whatever brokenness he encountered. The family is deeply grateful to the Kline Galland Home and its staff members for providing Rabbi Poupko with a sanctuary of dignity and Jewish respect in which to complete his days on earth.
— Gilah Kletenik