Irving Bunim

Irving M. Bunim was a businessman, philanthropist and a major lay leader of Orthodox Jewry in the United States from the 1930s until his death in 1980. As the trusted assistant to Rabbi Aharon Kotler, he was deeply involved in all aspects of Torah dissemination, philanthropy and Holocaust rescue.

Biography

Irving Bunim was born in 1901 in Volozhin, Lithuania, then the major Torah centre of Europe and the home of the first Yeshiva, Etz Chaim. Bunim, in his young years, was a Yeshiva student. When Bunim was nine years old, his family moved to the United States. There, Bunim attended high school, after which he started working. His brother-in-law hired him to his textile factory. When his brother-in-law moved to Palestine, Bunim bought the company.

Together with other American Orthodox leaders, Bunim established the Vaad Hatzalah, an organization created to save Yeshiva students and teachers from captivity and probable death in Eastern Europe. Later, the Vaad's scope expanded to include all suffering Jews in Europe and helped them by sending food and other relief supplies, or by giving them refuge in non-European countries of safety. Bunim was committed to following Torah Law and to saving lives. Once, because the Torah gives life-saving activity priority over Sabbath observance, and under express instruction from prominent rabbis, Bunim took a cab ride on Shabbat to raise funds so that the Mir Yeshiva students and teachers could escape to Curaçao.

The hardest aspect of rescue work was negotiating with the Nazis themselves. This series of negotiations was called the Musy Negotiations named after Jean-Marie Musy, the pro-Nazi former president of Switzerland with whom the Vaad negotiated. In these negotiations the Vaad agreed to pay Nazis ransom to free Jews from concentration camps. After some dealings the Vaad agreed to pay $5 million for 300,000 Jews or $250,000 each month for 20 months to free 15,000 Jews. These negotiations failed, though some thousand Jews, out of the 300,000 Jews promised to be freed, were saved from a certain death. After the war the Vaad kept working to supply the survivors with food and other relief supplies.

Bunim also supported Torah Umesorah, the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools, of which he was vice-president. Bunim never said no to out-of-town fund-raising missions. His tasks in Torah Umesorah included encouraging people to open schools, preventing communities from closing schools, and encouraging and giving strength to teachers and principals. Even when sick, Bunim went to far away places to raise funds. Within ten years, Torah Umesorah enabled every Jewish child in America who lived in a city with a population of at least 25,000 to attend Jewish day schools. Twenty years later, every Jewish child in cities of a population of 5,000 was able to go to Jewish day schools. Irving Bunim was also involved with Chinuch Atzmai – Israel’s Torah observant day school system. Bunim’s role in Chinuch Atzmai was helping Stephen Klein, national chairman of Chinuch Atzmai, and Rabbi Kotler by being the speaker for the organization in America. And again, Bunim also helped raise funds. Bunim and Klein organized meetings, built support, and raised funds. Bunim became very devoted to Chinuch Atzmai after seeing a Sephardic child in Israel who did not know the meaning of the Shema Yisrael prayer.

Irving Bunim was a philanthropist who gave loans and did the best he could to help people in need. His main goal was spreading the word of the Torah to all Jews who had forgotten it, or never been exposed to it, in America, Israel and the rest of the world. He was devoted to fund-raising work. He was a humorous figure, filled with anecdotes and parables to make life enjoyable and this trait is reflected in his three-volume commentary on Pirkei Avot, "Ethics from Sinai". ["A Fire In His Soul" by Amos Bunim ]

Irving Bunim died December 10, 1980 at his home in New York City.

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