Background
He was a descendant of the Sephardi Jews. Ezra Ronnie Labaton was born on July 21, 1950 in Brooklyn. He grew up in the Syrian Jewish Community of New New York
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Ezra Labaton
Edit ProfileEducation
Labaton was educated at Magen David Yeshiva, an elementary yeshiva, and Yeshiva of Flatbush High School. He attended Yeshiva University and Brandeis University.
Career
His ancestry was of Sephardic Jewry, specifically Syrian Jews. During his years in Yeshiva University and throughout the rest of his life, Ezra was a student of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik ("the Rav"). Yeshiva University
Brandeis University
Rabbi Labaton served as the Head Rabbi of from 1982 until his passing in 2013.
He was the first full-time Rabbi hired by the synagogue, which had opened shortly before.
Rabbinical Councils
Sephardic Rabbinical Council
Halachic Organ Donor Society (HODS)
Jersey Shore Orthodox Rabbinate (JSOR)
International
The Rabbi was diagnosed in 1999 with Colon Cancer. He would fight through many cycles of treatment & recurrence as the disease spread, before ultimately passing away in 2013 of advanced lung cancer.
In 2004, after recovering from his third recurrence, The Rabbi cited his illness & treatments as having helped him excel in the pastoral aspect of his role as Rabbi. He said it allowed him to empathize and share with other sick people, in a way that he never before was able to
As part of his recovery, the Rabbi became an avid runner, as he ran 5 miles each night, as often as 5 nights per week.
A number of the Rabbi"s students have set up and maintain RabbiLabaton.com, to help perpetuate his legacy through his teachings. The site contains hundreds of audio lectures, tributes, and other notes from his archives. They are also working to archive the contents of the Rabbi"s personal library, which include thousands of titles of Jewish Academia, as well as his personal archives of speeches and lecture notes.
