[5] His mother died when he was eight years old,[6] and he left Europe by himself in 1907 based on correspondence with a friend who preceded him to America.
He moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where he and his friend, Louis (Leibish) Dershowitz,[9] wanted to open a yeshiva for boys.
In the end he prevailed and founded in 1918 what would become known as 'the mother of all American yeshivos' - Yeshiva and Mesivta Torah Vodaath.
Together they built the first mesivta (Yeshiva High School) in New York and spurred the creation of Torah Umesorah.
There, he founded a network of afternoon programs for Sephardic youth in developing areas, which was to strengthen their commitment to Judaism.