Ephraim Oshry , noted Torah scholar and religious leader in the Kovno Ghetto , and one of the few European Jewish legal decisors to survive The Holocaust , became the synagogue 's rabbi in 1952 , a post he retained for over 50 years . During the Holocaust the Nazis had made him the custodian of a warehouse that stored Jewish books intended for an exhibit of " artifacts of the extinct Jewish race " . He used the books to help him write '' responsa '' , answering questions asked of him regarding how Jews could live their lives in accordance with Jewish law under the extreme conditions imposed by the Nazis . He also ran " secret nightly worship services " , and helped Jews bake '' matzos '' for Passover , under threat of death if discovered . After the war he founded a yeshiva for Jewish orphans in Italy , and then another religious school in Montreal , before moving to New York to take up the position of rabbi at Beth Hamedrash Hagodol . There , his Sunday afternoon lectures were so popular that the entire 1,200-seat sanctuary was filled , and the overflow had to sit on the stairs . While rabbi of Beth Hamedrash Hagodol , he founded another yeshiva in Monsey , New York for gifted high school aged boys
The Holocaust
The Holocaust
Beth Hamedrash Hagodol