The Responsa of Rabbi Solomon B. Freeho A Biographical Sketch’

Rabbi Solomon B. Freehof, a descendent of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Ladie. was born in London in 1892 and brought to Baltimore by his parents in 1903. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1914. He was ordained by Hebrew Union College (HUC ) in 1915 and served briefly as a chaplain in the American Expeditionary Force during World War L Freehof served as Assistant Professor of Medieval Liturgy and Rabbinics at HUC from 1915- to 1924, where he received his D.D. degree in 1922. In 1924 he became rabbi of Kehillath Anshe Ma’arav in Chicago and in 1934 he became rabbi of Rodef Shalom Congregation in Pittsburgh , where he was named rabbi emeritus in 1966.

Aside from the chairmanship of the Responsa Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Freehof held a number of national and international positions within the Reform movement. He became chairman of the Liturgy Committee in 1930; that committee published the Union Prayer Book in 1940-45. In 1942, he became Chairman of the Commission on Jewish Education, a position he held until 1959 From 1943 to 1945 he served as President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and from 1959 to 1964 as President of the World Union for Progressive Judaism . Rabbi Freehof passed away in 1990 b’sevah tovah at age 98.

Renaissance Man

In his student days at Hebrew Union College , Freehof was the favorite pupil of Professor J. Z. Lauterbach(1873-1942).% In 1952, Freehof published an appreciation of Lauterbach entitled“Jacob Z. Lauterbach and the Halakah ” in which he wrote:

The Talmud makes its children flexible, alert and many-sided.... Any

modern Jewish scholar who began his scholarly life in his boyhood with a

thorough grounding in the Talmud is likely to be somewhat ofa polymath,

certainly a many-sided author competent to deal with a surprising variety of