Zecharia Dershowitz, known as Reb Zecharia, was a RopshitzHassid who immigrated to the United States in 1888 from Galicia, Poland at the age of twenty nine. He founded one of the first Yiddish communities in America and the first Chassidus synagogue in Williamsburg, New York. His children, later, utilized the synagogue in order to save other Jews in Europe from the Holocaust by providing them with a means of immigration to the US by hiring them as a rabbi and firing them soon afterwards.
Biography
As was the custom with many new immigrants at that time, Zecharia left Europe in 1888, arriving in Castle Garden. This gave him an opportunity to establish himself in the “new land.” In 1891, when he felt that he could support his family, he sent for his wife, Lea, née Bander, and their four children, Leib, Samuel, Solie, and Scheindel. The family considered itself Ropshitz Hasidim. The earliest confirmed family history is the marriage of Yechezkiel Derschowitz to Chana Rivka, some time before 1840, in the district of Tarnow. Their oldest child was Zecharja. After arrival in the United States, three more children were born to Zecharja and Lea: Gussie, Hymie and Rosie. Of Zecharja’s six known siblings, at least five immigrated to the United States. Four of them established families in the New York area, and the children of the fifth settled in the Philadelphia area. At the time of the 1900 census, the family of "Solomon" Dershowitz and wife Lena, aged 50, is listed as living at 127 Goerck Street, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, with their seven children: Louis, age 18; Solomon, 14; Samuel, 13; Sadie, 12; Hyman, 8; Gussie, 6; and Rosie, 4. On August 4, 1902, after they moved from Goerck Street nearby to 61 Lewis Street, Zecharja was granted American citizenship. His occupation was listed as tailor, which meant he worked in a sweatshop in the garment district. One of his employers was the Triangle Shirt Factory, scene of the notorious Triangle Fire. His life was spared because, as a Sabbath observer he had not come to work on that fateful day. Zecharja became President of the 100 Cannon Street Burial Society. Under his jurisdiction, burial grounds were purchased in Mt. Hebron Cemetery in Queens. Zecharja and his four sons: Leibish, Shmeil, Shulem, and Yechezkel have their names engraved on the right door post of the Synagogue cemetery plot. These Manhattan streets don’t exist anymore, having been overtaken by the needs of the subsequently built Williamsburg Bridge in 1903, and other neighborhood projects. Many East Side families including that of Zecharja, subsequently moved to Williamsburg. There, he established the family synagogue on Roebling Street. Eventually, the synagogue moved to its permanent address at 94 South 10th Street. The deed to the building stated that one side of the property was the border between the City of Brooklyn and the Town of Williamsburg. He and two of his sons, Louis and Sam were very active in the Board of Directors of Yeshivah Torah Vodaath, which Louis had established with Binyomin Wilhelm in 1918. Zecharja converted the basement apartment into the family synagogue.To make sure that the family could support itself without working on the Sabbath, the synagogue was also used as a workshop. He opened his own factory by purchasing a sewing machine and a machine that put clamps on change-purses. These were set up in an unused fireplace in the corner of the Ladies’ Section of the synagogue. All three of his daughters eventually lived with their families in the three-family home. After Zecharja passed away, Lea continued to live there with the Fendel family above the shul. Zecharja had opened a hole in the floor of his apartment, which was right above the reading table of the synagogue, and covered it with a grate and a carpet. The grate was right under the dining room table. When the ladies of the family wanted to pray with the men, they had the choice of going down to the Ladies’ Section, or remaining in the Fendel dining room and uncovering the grate in the floor. In an advertisement in the Yiddish press, placed by Yeshivah Torah Vodaath when Zecharja died, he was called a Hassid, businessman and one who studied and taught Torah all his life. They also stated that he had raised large sums of money for charity. He was known as the “tzaddik of Williamsburg.” The saga of Lea and Zecharja paralled, reflected and influenced the next hundred years in the history of the American Jewish Community. Prof. Alan Dershowitz, of Harvard University fame, is a son of Harry, grandson of Louis, and great grandson of Zecharja. His son Louis Dershowitz, along with his son's friend Binyomin Wilhelm, were the two founders of the second Yeshiva in Brooklyn, Yeshiva Torah Vodaath.
