Barry S. Gourary � the prince and the commoner

REMBRANDT, Jacob Blessing the Children of Joseph, 1656, Oil on canvas, Staatliche Museen, Kassel

Schneur Zalman of NY remembers:
Barry was a very deliberate man. He thought along scientific lines. He rarely became excited or showed his emotions. He did laugh some times. Now that he is in the olam haemes many of the conversations I had with him can be revealed. And I hope to do so on this forum.

In Warsaw Bere had a private tutor. He was my landsman Rav Berel Gorfinkel (hamechuna Berel Kurnitzer) from Kurnitz, White Russia. The Rebbe also did not study in Tomche Tmimim, so whats the point. In addition Bere told me that much of his private study took place in the zal in Otwock. In the US Barry and his family thought he would gain more from study at Teyre Vedaas Yeshiva than in a new unstructured Tomche Tmimmim. And Barry received a shayne semicha from rabbi Kushelewitz of the Bronx in Teyre Vedaas.

He was not interested in history and had little regard for either chronology or historical research. He never felt the need to show off and rarely spoke of his rabbinic training etc. Only his wife Mina told me of his smicha from Teyre Vedaas. In many ways he was a classical Lithuanian Jew - scholarly, not overly emotional, with a sharp wry wit. Or maybe he was a classical Mench of Chabad. But he was a Pnimi.

Let me relate an interesting story here in his memory. In the late 1940's interested parties wanted Barry to "see" the daughter of the Rav (I presume the one who married Dr. Twersky). As such Barry came to YU and sat in the rav's shiurim for several months. Nothing came of the shidduch. As Reb Berke told me it was difficult enough being a Schneerson, imagine adding the luster of the Soloveitchik Brisk legacy to your family. I hope Barry wrote some zichrones. I encouraged him but he resisted.

I debated whether I should write as to R. Gourary' s religious state of mind. When I visited Barry in Lennox Hill hospital in 1989 (a visit he did not expect) I found him in PJ's with a big league tallith katan over his clothes.

Barry always had a beard. He davened before the amud in his Yeme Aveilus and was makpid on the Lithuanian pronunciation. His son in law Dr. Samuel Friedman is an Orthodox man. In West Hartford, Barry was a member of the local Young Israel. In NJ he was a member of the large Orthodox shul then rabbied by Rabbi Marcus. As a grad student at Columbia University I recall meeting an undergrad from there (who is now a well known Israeli diplomat D.G.) who told me that Barry had an influence on his own views of Judaism.

Barry had semicha not because his wife said so, but because he studied at Teyre VeDaas and there are hundreds of people in Flatbush who remember him well at that school. I saw his semicha . His legal adversaries in Crown Heights engaged in a campaign of defaming him. They claimed he was a mechalel Shabbes, and that he was this and that, even though this embarrassed the memory of his holy grandfather.

Many people believed this, but few had ever met him. Barry lived in Montclair, NJ. Yes there was no Orthodox shul there. I recall meeting a visiting Israeli professor of physics at YU many moons ago. This was a frum Mizrachi type who made aliya from the US in the late 1960's with a full beard. He told me that as a young man in the DC area his colleagues when learning of his religious leanings told him about another fellow at Johns Hopkins with a full beard. That man was Barry Gourary.

Finally anyone with Barry's Judaic background who almost received his doctorate in physics at Columbia and Johns Hopkins could not be a farshtopte kop and certainly had a yad vashem in Nigle and Nister. Zol er zayn a melitz Yosher for Klal Israel !

A reader of this blog Chabakuk Elisha found a letter written by Barry Gourary to the NY Times. Before you open this link please imagine the letter was written only 20 months before 9/11, just enough time to implement this idea. Now imagine live audio access to cockpits of the hijacked airplanes? Here is the letter to the NYT.

Schneur Zalman of NY continues:
There was also another side of Barry S. Gourary. Barry was a scientist. He had studied at Columbia and Johns Hopkins Universities. I believe he was studying Physics and almost finished his dissertation. Frankly a good part of my discussions with him were not concerning Chabad, but about information technology. At about 1986 he was telling me about remote access of library materials and various uses of the internet. He was very much involved in the new computer technology and interested in new manners of information retrieval.

Chabakuk Elisha found this advice on back pain from Barry Gourary, I would imagine that his knowledge is indicative of the fact that he was a sufferer himself.

Schneur Zalman of NY:
Reb Bere spoke in Yiddish in the traditional Litvishe pronunciation and more importantly in the cadence of Lithuanian Rabbonim. His English was rich but fairly accented with a Polish accent. Gourary spoke in Yiddish when relating a story about or from his grandfather or when telling a short dvar Teyre. He certainly knew Yiddish. He even had stationary which identified him as NECHED HARAYAATZ.

Hopefully the Lubavitch community will one day wake up and understand what was done to Barry Gourary. They will then take important steps to resolving the matter. Only time will tell. Zichrono Levracha.