A Decade of Transformation,
A Future of Justice

Mazal tov to Blu Greenberg and Joseph Weiler on their much deserved honor. You continue to inspire us with your unending dedication to the cause of ending iggun, and with all that you do for the entire Jewish community. With much appreciation and gratitude, Gail Katz and Mayer Bick

TRUE BLU! THANK YOU!

With great thanks to my teacher and my inspiration Blu Greenberg. Rabbi Lila Kagedan

Best and warm wishes on this important honor to Blu Greenberg and Jack Weiler and to the chairs of this dinner Sari Rapkin and Meyer Kolpow. Thank you to Rabbi Dolinger for inviting me to attend. Barbara Rascoff

In honor of Rabbi Barry Dolinger to whom we will be be forever grateful for his kindness and deep understanding

I’m am so honored to celebrate the work that you do.

Our congratulations on this honor and our gratitude for all you have done and continue to do for our people! Gaya & Lewis (Bernstein)

In honor of Blu Greenberg for her endless work on behalf of all the daughters of Israel. In memory of Rabbi Simcha Krauss z”l for his leadership in all realms of Jewish life.

Dear Blu In appreciation for all you have done to strengthen Jewish life and for your personal friendship and support for so many decades. Mazal tov on this richly-merited and well-deserved honor. Edith and Steven Bayme

With gratitude to you Blu (and you too Yitz) for all you do for our people. Tamshichu bivriyut. With love and respect, Gaya and Lewis

In honor of a lifetime of service to others. You are a blessing.

Mazal tov Blu – your leadership has brought strength and dignity to our community. Thank you for making change with wisdom, love and determination, and for your continual friendship and kindness. You are one of our heroes. In deep appreciation for the scholarship of Professor Joseph Weiler, and with reverent gratitude for the Torah leadership and moral courage of Rabbi Simcha Krauss ztz”l. May the IBD continue to lead the way. Love, Steven Exler & Shira Billet and family

Mazal tov to Blu Greenberg on this well-deserved honor. May you continue to go from strength to strength! Mazal tov also to Joseph Weiler.

Thank you for bringing light to a place that feels so dark!

We are so grateful to have know Rabbi Simcha Krauss, z”l in his lifetime, and his torah learning, empathy and wisdom always shone. To Rabbi Yitz and Blu Greenberg, you have always been a guide to us and our entire community, and serve to inspire us every day, Michelle and Jeff Kobrin Yaira, Sol, Naama, Romi, Tali and Livia

Blu Greenberg, a name that is a light to us!! Her lights sparkle in environments around us with all sorts of colors. That is why we need colors we can trust to enhance us. We thank you Blu for all you have been able to do even when you needed to push strongly to accomplish the impossible. Love, Hadassah

In memory of our beloved teacher Rabbi Simcha Krauss, ZTL, who showed us kindness, love, and Torah at the beginning of our marriage. With love to R’ Esther and the entire family, Atara Lindenbaum and Jeremy Bressman.

Rachel and I are thrilled to see how the International Beit Din went from a vision of Blu Greenberg and Joseph Weiler to the transformational institution which it is today. We remember dearly the sacrifices and commitment that Rabbi Simcha Krauss made to turn this Beit Din into a reality. Yesherkoach and what a legacy! Rabbi Asher and Rachel Lopatin

Dear R’ Blu, Ever since we have known you, your unwavering determination and commitment to freeing agunot has been a constant. In addition to the multiple ways in which you helped our people appreciate that Jewish women are thinkers, leaders and innovators, you also recognized that advocates were needed for women when their voices were silenced. You have worked tirelessly in that effort for decades. Alongside Rabbi Simcha Krauss, zt”l, you saved so many who were sentenced by other rabbinic courts to an imprisoned future. You worked within the halakhic system to make their freedom possible. As the Gemara in Sanhedrin 37a teaches: כל המקיים נפש אחת…מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו קיים עולם מלא. Anyone who saves a single soul, it is as if they saved an entire world. R’ Blu- you have saved many who have been neglected. But because what you have accomplished is not only for the here and now but for the future, you have saved and will save countless worlds. We thank you and cannot express our gratitude enough for your contributions to Klal Yisrael. May you continue your incredible work, alongside the outstanding Rav Yitz and your family. May you go m’chayil l’chayil in good health ad meah vesrim Shana. Tizki lmitzvot. With much love and admiration, Dina Najman and James Licht ———— Rabbi Krauss wore many hats of Torah leadership: He was a Kohen who duchened for the tzibbur. He led several communities as their communal Rav. He was an exceptional Dayan – judge. Not only through his honesty, his truth and his integrity, which of course he had. But, in the way he operated lifnim m’shurat haDin (above and beyond the law). As the Gemara in Baba Metzia, 30b teaches in the name of Rabi Yochanan: לא חרבה ירושלים אלא על שדנו בה דין תורה. – אלא דיני דמגיזתא לדיינו? – אלא אימא: שהעמידו דיניהם על דין תורה, ולא עבדו לפנים משורת הדין What caused the destruction of the temple says the Gemara was the absence of that part of justice. Rabbi Krauss, as a dayan, mastered it!. He knew how to teach Torah to countless students who now feel the void of not only his teachings but the way in which he transmitted his words of Torah. He was a student: It only a successful student, recognized as one of the top Talmidim of Rav Hutner and Rav Soloveitchik, making him a great Talmid Chacham. But, Rabbi Krauss also sought to continue to learn continuously and consistently, absorbing ideas from others, no matter their age, no matter their level of learning. HaRav Krauss began a Beit Din to fight for those vulnerable. The agunah. The Geir. He would put himself right on the front lines, no matter the obstacles others put in his way. No matter how much it must have exhausted him. While HaRav Krauss is longer physically with us, perhaps the nechama for those of us who were fortunate to learn from him, is that his brand of Torah with the highest level of scholarship alongside integrity, flexibility and kindness will continue on in the work he innovated. Moreover, this work is continuing to help countless people thanks to his perseverance and energy. As we learn in the Talmud Yerushalmi, Shekalim, Perek Bet: רבן שמעון בן גמליאל אומר אין עושים נפשות לצדיקים דבריהן הן זכרונן “It is unnecessary to erect monuments to the righteous; their deeds are their memorials.” Rabbi Simcha Krauss’ legacy through his exceptional family, his teaching, his leadership, courage and actions continue to have positive consequences and improve our world. May he be a mailitz yosher for his family and Klal Yisrael and may we continue to be inspired by him as an extraordinary model for the way one lives a life with Yirat Shamayim, Oheiv et habriyot and being a person of shalom. Y’hi zichro Baruch. Dina Najman and James Licht

With so much gratitude to Blu Greenberg and Joseph Weiler for all their tireless efforts on behalf of aggunot and aggunim. May they go m’chayil l’chayil in good health in the exceptional with they do. We also continue to pay tribute and have profound hakarat hatov to Rabbi Simcha Krauss for his courage, tremendous halakhic gadlus and for standing confident and strong on behalf of those in the community who needed a gadol to be an advocate for their freedom. Respectfully, Rabbi Dina Najman and The Kehilah of Riverdale Board of Trustees

Heartfelt congratulations and best wishes to Blu Greenberg on this incredibly well-deserved honor, and on your blessed and everlasting impact on the Jewish world. With admiration, respect, and love from Seryl Ritter and Buddy Skydell.

Blu, thank you for inspiring me always with your clarity of vision and fortitude. Your manage to be fierce, kind, and tireless all at once, and always optimistic. With love and appreciation, Lisa Schlaff

Thank you to the Leadership and Honorees of the International Beit Din for their courage, forward-looking, and life-saving work. A special thanks to Blu Greenberg, who with her outspokenness and steadfast trust in the workings of halacha has done so much on behalf of Orthodox women, and the freeing of agunot.

It is an honor to pay tribute to the International Beit Din on its tenth anniversary. In memory of מורי ורבי, HaRav Simcha Krauss zt”l, whose halachic outlook combined genuine compassion with intellectual rigor; his vast limmud consistently led to ma’aseh. In honor of Blu Greenberg, whose ardent advocacy for agunot serves as a wellspring of inspiration. In honor of Professor Joseph Weiler for his indefatigable efforts to eradicate the injustice perpetuated against agunot. May the Beit Din continue its contributions to the end of iggun.

With admiration and awe for your indefatigable efforts and persistence over so many decades in the face of innumerable obstacles. Zelda R. Stern

Mazel tov to my dear mentor and beloved friend, Blu

In honor of our dear friend, mentor (and much more) for her lifelong dedication to make the Jewish world a better place through love, compassion and, in the nicest possible way, speaking truth to power.

In honor of Joseph Weiler who said “We can do this.” And in the memory of Rabbi Krauss who went and did it.

Rabbi Krauss wore many hats of Torah leadership: He was a Kohen who duchened for the tzibbur. He led several communities as their communal Rav. He was an exceptional Dayan – judge. Not only through his honesty, his truth and his integrity, which of course he had. But, in the way he operated lifnim m’shurat haDin (above and beyond the law). As the Gemara in Baba Metzia, 30b teaches in the name of Rabi Yochanan: לא חרבה ירושלים אלא על שדנו בה דין תורה. – אלא דיני דמגיזתא לדיינו? – אלא אימא: שהעמידו דיניהם על דין תורה, ולא עבדו לפנים משורת הדין What caused the destruction of the temple says the Gemara was the absence of that part of justice. Rabbi Krauss, as a dayan, mastered it!. He knew how to teach Torah to countless students who now feel the void of not only his teachings but the way in which he transmitted his words of Torah. He was a student: It only a successful student, recognized as one of the top Talmidim of Rav Hutner and Rav Soloveitchik, making him a great Talmid Chacham. But, Rabbi Krauss also sought to continue to learn continuously and consistently, absorbing ideas from others, no matter their age, no matter their level of learning. HaRav Krauss began a Beit Din to fight for those vulnerable. The agunah. The Geir. He would put himself right on the front lines, no matter the obstacles others put in his way. No matter how much it must have exhausted him. While HaRav Krauss is longer physically with us, perhaps the nechama for those of us who were fortunate to learn from him, is that his brand of Torah with the highest level of scholarship alongside integrity, flexibility and kindness will continue on in the work he innovated. Moreover, this work is continuing to help countless people thanks to his perseverance and energy. As we learn in the Talmud Yerushalmi, Shekalim, Perek Bet: רבן שמעון בן גמליאל אומר אין עושים נפשות לצדיקים דבריהן הן זכרונן “It is unnecessary to erect monuments to the righteous; their deeds are their memorials.” Rabbi Simcha Krauss’ legacy through his exceptional family, his teaching, his leadership, courage and actions continue to have positive consequences and improve our world. May he be a mailitz yosher for his family and Klal Yisrael and may we continue to be inspired by him as an extraordinary model for the way one lives a life with Yirat Shamayim, Oheiv et habriyot and being a person of shalom. Y’hi zichro Baruch.