Bidspirit auction | Rabbi Riff was born in

Rabbi Riff was born in Bobrisk, in the guberniya (province) of Minsk, Russia on September 9, 1893. He came to the United States by way of Seattle in 1916 and by 1918 was ordained as a Rabbi. Rabbi Riff was at that time already serving as the head Rabbi at Sons of Israel, which had been founded in 1886 corner of South 8th and Sycamore Streets. An Orthodox synagogue, Sons of Israel was popularly known in Camden's Jewish Community as the ”8th Street Schul”. Rabbi Riff led Sons of Israel from the early 1920s through the late 1960s. He brought his wife Bessie (Basja) to America from Russia in the summer of 1923 and became an American citizen in 1924. The Riffs had one child, a daughter named Roselynn. Rabbi Riff led the Congregation in Camden for almost 50 years. In the late 1960s, changes in Camden's demographics and the imminent construction of interstate highway Route 676 caused Congregation Sons of Israel to move to a new building in Cherry Hill. The 8th Street Schul was demolished shortly afterwards. When Rabbi Riff stepped down from the pulpit in the late 1960s he retired to Israel, where his wife passed away. He became sick and returned to New York, where he passed in October of 1976. Besides his work in Camden at Sons of Israel, Rabbi Riff was the President from 1958 until 1976 of the highly respected Ezra's Torah charitable organization, which has funded a variety of programs in Israel since 1915. The Rabbi Naftali Riff Yeshiva in South Bend IN, which operates as a high school and as a rabbinical college, was named in his memory. - ר' נפתלי צבי יהודה ריף מקעמדען נוא דשערסי