Yisrael Mendel Kaplan
Israel or Yisrael Mendel Kaplan (April 14, 1913 – April 4, 1985), known as "Reb Mendel" was an American Orthodox Jewish rabbi and author. He was best known as a teacher in the Hebrew Theological College of Chicago and the Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia, where he mentored many future leaders of Orthodox Jewry. Early life Yisrael Mendel Kaplan was born in Baranovich, Poland (now Baranavichy, Belarus) to Avraham and Esther Kaplan. Avraham was a lawyer and Esther was involved in community service, raising funds for the yeshiva and feeding the poor. After his bar mitzvah, Kaplan was enrolled in Yeshiva Ohel Torah-Baranovich, and studied under Elchonon Wasserman. He was considered a very promising student and was assigned Wasserman's son, Naftali, as a study partner. When Wasserman needed to travel overseas in order to raise money for the yeshiva, Kaplan would deliver the lecture in his stead. He later studied in the Mir yeshiva under Yeruchom Levovitz. In late 1939, during the invasion of Poland, the Jews of Baranovich fled for their lives. Wasserman advised his yeshiva students to regroup in then-independent Vilna, Lithuania. Kaplan, who by this time had gotten married, moved there with his family, where he studied under Yitzchak Zev Soloveitchik. In June 1940, when the Soviet Union occupied Vilna, Jewish life became unbearable. Like the members of the Mir yeshiva and other refugees there, Kaplan sought visas to allow him to escape Nazi and Soviet rule. He obtained a de facto destination visa from the Dutch consul but was unable to obtain the necessary transit visa from the Japanese Vice-consul, Chiune Sugihara, that would allow his family to detour through Japan while awaiting some final, true destination. The family nevertheless boarded the trains to the Russian port city of Vladivostok. His son, Chaim Ozer, was born on the train ride. After entering Japanese territory by boat, Kaplan expected deportation back to Russia and eventually Siberia. Japanese officials goaded him to produce any kind of visa, and he reluctantly showed them an obviously tampered Japanese transit visa. Inexplicably, it was stamped and accepted and the family continued on to Kobe and then later to Shanghai. His son Shimon was born in Shanghai, while his middle son, Chaim Ozer got sick and died there. Career In 1946, the Kaplans arrived in San Francisco, and from there they went on to Chicago, where Kaplan's brother Hertzl was teaching at the Chicago yeshiva that was to become the Hebrew Theological College. Kaplan accepted a teaching position there, though his students were English-speaking and his English was not yet mastered. Even so, eventually he found success teaching the American youth. He won the students over by offering to "teach them to read the Chicago Tribune if they taught him to read English." His insights into world affairs and reading between the lines of the daily paper (even while needing help with the language) earned him his student's respect. When his girls were old enough for high school, his wife moved with them