Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi Dr. Solomon Freilich on 18 March 1980

Mr. PEYSER. Mr. Speaker, I have been given this privilege of introducing our distinguished rabbi to the Members this morning because our colleague, the gentleman from New York (Mr. OTTINGER), is at the funeral services of our former colleague, Mr. Allard Lowenstein.

Mr. Speaker, Dr. Solomon Freilich, who is giving the invocation this morning, is the spiritual leader of Mount Vernon’s Congregation Brothers of Israel, the oldest synagogue of Westchester County, N.Y. He has served this congregation with distinction for over 27 years.

Rabbi Freilich is an ardent devotee of Israel, Jewish education, and humanitarian causes. He is the recipient of distinctive service awards by the United Jewish Appeal, Bonds for Israel, Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, and many other institutions. He maintains an abiding interest in higher Jewish education and is a member of the board of trustees of Yeshivat Ohr Hameir, a rabbinical school in Westchester. He served as president of the alumni association of his alma mater, the Rabbinical Academy of Brooklyn and as president of the Synagogue Council of Mount Vernon, N.Y. His dissertation on Biblical studies was recently published in Israel, a scholarly work for which he was awarded a doctoral degree at Yeshiva University.

Rabbi Freilich has had deep involvements in the work on behalf of Soviet Jewry. He was among the first rabbis to have visited the Soviet Union in 1957, and was the guest of the chief rabbi of Moscow, Rabbi Judah Levin. Rabbi Levin was the guest at Rabbi Freilich’s synagogue, the only visit in Westchester during his brief stay in America.

In July 1967, following the Six-Day War, Rabbi Freilich made a second visit to the Soviet Union, where he was detained for 3 days in Kiev by the Russian authorities who charged him with dissemination of Israeli propaganda. He was released and sent to Vienna where he was received by the chargé d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy.

The rabbi has a sensitive and ongoing concern for senior citizens and the elderly in his community. He has a course certificate from the Gerontological Institute at Yeshiva University.

His two married children and nine grandchildren reside in Israel. They head departments in American-sponsored Torah schools of higher Jewish education.

Rabbi Freilich serves as the chaplain of the Police Department of Mount Vernon, a position he has held for the last 20 years. He has won the esteem of his colleagues, the love of his congregation, and the admiration of the community, by virtue of his deep commitment to traditional Judaism, the Jewish people, and humanitarian concerns.