Rav Twersky had links to Riverdale and Boston

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Memorial services were held Tuesday night in Riverdale and Boston for Rabbi Moshe Twersky, Hy”d.

Twersky was a “gifted and beloved teacher,” said Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt of the Riverdale Jewish Center in the Bronx. Twersky was from a prominent rabbinical family — his grandfather was Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik — and was the head of a religious seminary for English-speaking students in Jerusalem. Rabbi Rosenblatt is married to Twersky’s sister, the former Tzipporah Twersky.

He was a “gentle, saintly scholar” who “lived his life with a kind of perfected modesty and precision,” Rabbi Rosenblatt said. “He lived in the image of a gentle G-d.”

In the Boston suburb of Brookline, hundreds of people attended a service at the Maimonides School. Rabbi Twersky was a 1973 graduate of the school founded by Rav Soloveitchik.

Naty Katz, a classmate of Twersky’s who now heads the school, spoke at the service. “I will always remember our friend Mosheh, his modesty, his brilliance, his smile, his kindness,” Katz said. “We are all heartbroken.”

Another longtime friend, Danny Langermann, remembered Twersky’s skill as a football offensive lineman.

Langermann also recalled a long-ago hug from his friend, the Boston Globe reported, saying, “If there is anything I will carry with me for the rest of my life it is that hug.”

Twersky was the son of Rabbi Isadore Twersky, a founding director of Harvard University’s Center for Jewish Studies and a scholar of Jewish history. Isadore Twersky died in 1997.

“I know that I speak for all of us in the CJS community when I say we are heartbroken at the news of this unspeakable act of sacrilegious cruelty,” center director Eric Nelson said in a statement.

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