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Wednesday, January 08, 2003

By Steve Levin, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

When Shlomo Koves was a 14-year-old student at a Squirrel Hill high school nine years ago, his knowledge of Hebrew was rudimentary and his English not much better.

His dream, though, was to become a rabbi in his native Budapest.

Yesterday, in a ceremony connecting to centuries of rich Jewish tradition in Hungary, Koves was ordained as the first Orthodox rabbi in that country since the Holocaust.

The congregation of around 300 Orthodox Jews and members of the wider Jewish community sang and clapped as the 23-year-old Koves was ordained at the tiny Chabad Lubavitch synagogue.

Chief rabbis Mordechai Eliahu of Israel and Berel Lazar of Russia joined the leader of Budapest Jews, Rabbi Boruch Oberlander, in placing a prayer shawl around Koves' shoulders.

"The Torah has returned from Israel with this young rabbi," Eliahu said in his speech of blessing.

On his way to making history yesterday in Budapest, Koves spent a little more than two years as a student at Squirrel Hill's Yeshiva Boys School, studying both secular and Judaic subjects, before leaving for more advanced learning in France, New York, Israel and Hungary.

"He was one of the most remarkable students I was ever involved with," said Rabbi Yossi Rosenblum, principal of Yeshiva Boys School. Koves lived with the Rosenblum family during his 2 1/2 years in Pittsburgh.

Rosenblum said Koves was not raised in a religious home; in fact, the vast majority of Hungary's 100,000 Jews are assimilated. But as a youth Koves met Oberlander and decided he wanted to learn more about Judaism, particularly since he had a great-great-grandfather and a great-great-uncle who were renowned Orthodox rabbis.

Levi Marcus, a classmate of Koves' in Squirrel Hill, remembered an extremely smart student who quickly improved his language and comprehension skills.

"He didn't want to waste time; he was there to learn," said Marcus, who is working while earning his undergraduate degree at the University of Pittsburgh. "There were points when I was learning from him."

At school, Koves sought out people to study with; at the Rosenblum home, he would study on his own for hours.

"My wife was seriously concerned about his health," Rosenblum said, "because he'd be up until 1 or 2 in the morning studying. Even now, I find strips of paper in some of my books with notes he jotted down.

"He became one of the top students."

Before the Holocaust, there were 70 yeshivas scattered across Hungary. There also were more than 800,000 Jews, primarily Orthodox, who lived in small towns and rural areas.

It's estimated that at least 600,000 Hungarian Jews died in the Holocaust.

"We are turning a new page with the induction of this young rabbi," Oberlander said at yesterday's ceremony.

"Religious teaching was banned under communism," Oberlander said. "But here we have a Hungarian-born young man who has studied to a level where the Chief Rabbi of Israel attends his ordination."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Steve Levin can be reached at slevin@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1919.