Samuel Schafler

Samuel Schafler (1929-1991) was a New York-born rabbi, historian and Jewish educator. He was Superintendent of the Board of Jewish Education of Metropolitan Chicago and President of Hebrew College in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Biography

Samuel Schafler was born in Bronx, New York in 1929. His father, Benjamin Schafler, and mother, Ethel (nee Schnapp) owned a grocery store. Schafler studied at the Yeshiva of Flatbush, the Talmudical Academy and the Teachers Institute of Yeshiva University. Schafler grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He had one sister, Pearl.

In 1950, Schafler graduated with honors from the City College of New York, where he was awarded the Cromwell Medal and the Nelson P. Mead Prize in History. Schafler was ordained as a Conservative rabbi in 1952 after graduating from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. He pursued graduate work in Jewish history and education at Columbia University