Sholom Rivkin

Rabbi Sholom Rivkin (6 June 1926 – 1 October 2011) was a Palestine-born American rabbi. He was the last Chief Rabbi of St. Louis, Missouri, and the last chief rabbi of one of only a few cities in the United States that has ever had a chief rabbi. He held the post of Chief Rabbi from 1983 until 2005 and was Chief Rabbi Emeritus until his death in 2011. He was also a chief judge on the Beth Din of the Rabbinical Council of America, and head of the Vaad Hoeir of St. Louis, the governing body of the St. Louis Orthodox Jewish community. He was an expert in Jewish law, especially family and divorce law, and was consulted by rabbis and rabbinical courts around the world.

Early life and education Sholom Rivkin was born June 6, 1926, at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. His father was Rabbi Moshe Ber Rivkin, a protégé and beloved chasid of Rabbi Sholom Dovber Schneersohn (also known as “the Rashab”), the fifth Rebbe (spiritual leader) of the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic movement. His mother was Nacha Rivkin (née Heber) of Kalisz, Poland. Rabbi Moshe Ber and Nacha married in 1920 and their daughter, Ella, was born in 1921. In 1924, Moshe Ber Rivkin was sent by the Rashab to Palestine to be the dean of a rabbinical school, the Yeshivas Toras Emes in Jerusalem, where their son, Sholom, was born.

Following the 1929 Palestine riots, Rivkin's family emigrated to the United States and settled in Borough Park, Brooklyn, where Rivkin's father become the dean of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath. He received his rabbinic ordination at Yeshiva Torah Vodaath.

For the next 22 years, Rivkin presided as Chief Rabbi over the St. Louis Rabbinical Court and led the Vaad Hoeir of St. Louis, a council that supervises facets of Jewish observance ranging from kosher practice to education to religious divorce. He was the final arbiter of all cases of Jewish law of the Rabbinical Court, and both his scholarship and care for others were noted as hallmarks of his term of office.

Family After their marriage in 1954, Paula (Pepi) Rivkin became a clinical psychologist. She was an advocate for women and a co-founder of the Jewish Council Against Family Violence. She was also a community leader, serving as a member of the board of directors of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis, the board and advisory committee of the St. Louis Jewish Light, and as a driving force behind the renovation of the community mikveh. The couple was married for 56 years, until Paula died January 7, 2011, aged 78.

Their son, Rabbi Benzion Rivkin, was the 41st in a continuous line of rabbis in the Rivkin family. a second at Yeshivah Torah Vodaath in New York, and the third in Jerusalem. Rivkin was buried next to his wife, parents and grandparents at the Mount of Olives Cemetery in Jerusalem.