Hebrew Academy’s Rabbi Aaron Rosenbleeth dies at 41

Friday, February 27, 2004 | by

joe eskenazi

Students and staff at Hebrew Academy knew things had gotten bad when Miguel Hernandez — the school’s perennially warbling head custodian — couldn’t bring himself to serenade them in recent weeks as his great friend Rabbi Aaron Rosenbleeth rapidly succumbed to lung cancer.

“People around here noticed when Miguel stopped whistling,” said Rabbi Pinchas Lipner, the school’s dean.

“We went through three horrendous months. Rabbi Rosenbleeth was with us for 18 years, and to see him suffer as he did was just horrendous.”

Rosenbleeth died on Saturday, Feb. 14, just months after doctors discovered that the pain in his legs and chest was due to cancer. A nonsmoker, he was only 41 years old.

Students and staff are still in shock over the young teacher and Judaic principal’s death. Rosenbleeth had a near-constant presence at the school over the past two decades, often working long hours — coming in on his own time — and six days a week.

A social call Rosenbleeth paid Lipner while on his honeymoon in San Francisco 18 years ago changed both men’s lives. After just 15 minutes, Lipner was so taken with the young Torah scholar that he offered him a job.

The energetic rabbi helped Lipner expand Hebrew Academy into a K-12 school, and he taught Torah and Judaism to a generation of students. Alumni and rabbinical scholars from around the nation flew to San Francisco for his Sunday, Feb. 15, services, which Lipner said was the largest gathering of Orthodox rabbis he’s seen in the city in his 35 years here.

Rosenbleeth grew up a military brat, the son of the naval attaché in the Shah’s Iran, where he had his bar mitzvah. He became observant as an older teenager, and left his San Antonio home to study at a yeshiva in Denver. He later attended New Jersey’s Lakewood Yeshiva, “the Harvard of yeshivot,” before Lipner hired him as a young graduate.

“I’ve walked by his office, and I always noticed him sitting there and now I don’t. I still can’t really believe it. It’s surreal; I still expect him to come back and teach or sit in that office,” said Yelena Giderman, a 17-year-old senior who has been a student of Rosenbleeth’s at Hebrew Academy for the past 14 years.

Hernandez says he feels like he’s lost a brother. Lipner feels he’s lost a son.

“You have to look at his face to understand. He was such a sweet young man. He was able to accept human beings, including me, with all our quirks and faults, which is very unusual. People loved him.” Lipner said.

Students described Rosenbleeth as a demanding but brilliant teacher who respected his students’ opinions and kept them involved in the class. He was also “a very funny guy.

“It wasn’t easy. But he could explain something you’d feel so detached from and bring you into it. It was an amazing skill,” said 16-year-old junior Alik Shandrovsky.

Students’ contact with Rosenbleeth often extended beyond the walls of Hebrew Academy as the rabbi, his wife, Chanie, and their four children hosted weekly Shabbat dinners that frequently featured 10 to 20 young guests, many of whom would spend the night sleeping on the floor of the family’s Sunset District home.

In addition to teaching, Rosenbleeth was active in the local rabbinical divorce court and worked for the Vaad HaKashrus. (San Francisco kosher consumers have him to thank for kashering the local Krispy Kreme.)

He is survived by his wife and children: Yossi, 15; Dovid Uri, 13; Alana, 10; and Rena, 4.

Contributions can be made to the Hebrew Academy Rosenbleeth Memorial Scholarship Fund at Hebrew Academy, 645 14th Ave., S.F., CA 94118.