More than 65 years after he graduated from the first Chabad school in America, Rabbi Mordechai (Mottel) Fisher returned to Crown Heights on July 10th, 2010 to relive and share his experiences for JEM's My Encounter with the Rebbe project, reminiscing about the “good old days” in 770.
After the interview, he met up with his old friend Rabbi Abraham Hecht at their old yeshivah stomping grounds in 770, speaking about their memories of their years with each other and with the Rebbes of Chabad.
Rabbi Mordechai (Mottel) Fisher was one of the original students in the first Chabad school in the Western Hemisphere, and a longtime rabbi and sexton (shammash) in many communities.
Mordechai Hakohen (or Mottel, as he was known) Fisher was born Nov. 7, 1919, in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn to Chaim and Taibel Fisher. His father, a tailor, was a religious Jew, though not a Chassid.
A spiritually sensitive young man, Fisher was influenced by Rabbi Yisroel Jacobson, a Chabad Chassid who had attracted a cadre of Jewish American-raised youngsters who were drawn to the Chabad Chassidic teachings and lifestyle.
At his mentor’s urging, Fisher immersed himself in Chassidic teachings, He even began teaching Chassidism in area synagogues as early as 1939.
Jacobson was quite satisfied with the progress of his protégé, writing in his memoirs that he “excels in this regard. He has a smooth delivery, and his nature is that he contemplates and thinks deeply into the details of what he is learning, carefully noticing the nuances and thinking things over a number of times. He tells me that every discourse that he repeats, he reviews while lying in bed, repeating and explaining to himself every single word.”
Overseas for a Short Time
In the summer of 1939, Fisher and five other students sailed across the Atlantic to the Chabad-Lubavitch yeshivah in Otwock, Poland. There, they could be close to their spiritual leader, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory—and would be able to take part in listening to his scholarly discourses on Chabad philosophy, something they had heard much about from Jacobson.
But their time in Poland was short-lived; the Germans invaded the nation on Sept. 1. With the help of a representative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the students made their way to Riga, Latvia, and from there to Sweden and then to the United States.
Six months later, on March 19, 1940, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak reached the shores of New York. While he tirelessly campaigned on behalf of European Jewry, he also set forth a plan to build Jewish observance in the United States.
As part of that effort, Fisher joined nine other students in the first Chabad school in the basement of the Oneg Shabbos synagogue in the East Flatbush neighborhood in Brooklyn.
After graduating with a rabbinic degree and marrying Ruth Romanoff in 1944, Fisher went on to serve as a rabbi and sexton in a number of congregations in Chicago; Woodridge, Canada; and Bethlehem, Pa. Early on in his career, he received valuable advice from Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak.
Fisher’s final post was back home in Brooklyn, where he was a long-serving shammash and Torah teacher at Talmud Torah Ohev Shalom R. Morris Kevelson in the Canarsie neighborhood. Those who knew him said his work was a labor of love until his retirement in 1997.
During the course of his rabbinic career, he corresponded with the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—about various communal matters. The Rebbe’s advice ranged from sermon material to how to extricate himself from potentially explosive communal fracases.
Fisher passed away on April 20 in Deerfield Beach, Fla.
In addition to his wife, Ruth, he is survived by sons Samuel Fisher, Robert Fisher and Reuben Fisher; a daughter, Toby Siegman; and 22 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by his eldest daughter, Mina Kwitkin, earlier this year.
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