Rabbi Emeritus
Rabbi Elkanah Schwartz, z"l
For over forty-five years, Rabbi Elkanah Schwartz was a bedrock of Orthodox Jewish life in Prospect Heights. A native New Yorker from Manhattan’s lower East side and Brooklyn’s Brownsville, Torah scholar Rabbi Elkanah Schwartz began his Torah education at Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin, eventually resulting in S’micha Ordination from that institution. Formerly Assistant Editor of Jewish Life Magazine, published by the Orthodox Union, Rabbi Schwartz is a published author of short stories (American Life: Shtetl Style, Stories & Sketches, 1967). A graduate of Brooklyn College, Rabbi Schwartz pursued graduate studies at New York University’s Graduate School of Public Affairs and served as Assistant to Deputy Mayor Herman Badillo in the 1970s.
Rabbi Schwartz became Rabbi of CKI since 1976. He was Rabbi of Coney Island Talmud Torah and had provided weekly classes in Halacha and Parsha to CKI congregants in their private homes, when CKI’s President Arthur Fried asked him to succeed Rabbi Nathan Thumin. Rabbi Schwartz was able to keep the CKI synagogue open and alive during the Brooklyn demise of the 1980s-1990s and witnessed its resurgence in the 2000s. Married to Chedva Spitzer in 1980, Rabbi Schwartz and Rebbetzin have two children and many grandchildren. In addition to serving as Rabbi of CKI, Rabbi Schwartz is Director of Community Relations, Torah Schools for Israel. Although Rabbi Schwartz and his family moved from Crown Heights to Boro Park in 1993, he walked from his Boro Park home to CKI in Crown Heights-Prospect Heights every Shabbos and Yom Tov - an eight-mile round trip for more than twenty years - widely acknowledged as an act of supreme “mesiras nefesh” by him and by his wife. When the walk became too difficult, and with CKI adopting new By-Laws in 2013 and hiring an onsite rabbi for Shabbat and Holiday services, Rabbi Schwartz continued to officiate at Sunday morning services, write weekly Parsha Thoughts for the CKI newsletter, and provide pastoral counseling, until his passing in 2023.