Moshe Sherer

Rabbi Moshe Sherer (June 18, 1921 – May 17, 1998) was co-Chairman of the Agudath Israel World Organization from 1980, and the Chairman of Agudath Israel of America from the 1960s, until his death in 1998.^[1]

He was an active presence in the United States capital for better than half-a-century, advocating the interests and articulating the views of Orthodox Jewry. In 1988 he created the only full-time Orthodox Jewish government affairs office in Washington, D.C. Throughout his career Sherer strongly supported the State of Israel and advocated on its behalf. In 1975, after the infamous “Zionism is Racism” United Nations resolution, Sherer, then-president of Agudath Israel of America, wrote that “Though the resolution was supposedly aimed only at secular ‘Zionism’… the slander is an attack on the entire Jewish people.”

Even if the hatred was aimed only at certain Jews, he continued, “we [Agudath Israel adherents] would feel precisely the same responsibility to come to the defense of our brethren. While we may have our own quarrel with secular Zionism, when Jews are libeled, their affiliation does not matter; our love for our brothers and sisters draws us to their side.” But what is more, he stressed, “the U. N. resolution is aimed at all Jews, for it assails the historical Jewish right to Eretz Yisrael. The Torah bestowed that right, and any attack on it is an attack on Judaism and the Jewish people.”

He died of leukemia on Sunday, May 17, 1998.

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