Rabbi George Silverstone was a prominent Orthodox rabbi and author in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century.
Background
Gedaliah ben Isiah Meir Zylbersztejn was born in 1871 in a shtetl in what is now Poland, where his maternal grandfather was the rabbi. At the age of two, he moved to Sakot, Kovno Governorate, where his father served as a rabbi. Young Gedaliah studied in the yeshivot in Ruzhany and Telz until 1891, when his father moved his family to Liverpool, England, where his name was anglicized.
Career
Silverstone was appointed the rabbi of the Belfast Hebrew Congregation in 1901. He visited America in 1905 to sell his books The following year he decided to settle there because he could not support his large family in the United Kingdom and he was appointed rabbi of Ohev Sholom Congregation in Washington, District of Columbia
He simultaneously served Kesher Israel Congregation in Georgetown after it was organized in 1911.
Silverstone, a popular rabbi, was on good terms with his congregants. As opposed to other American rabbis of the period, his publishing endeavors were supported by the community at large and he issued pamphlets of sermons on an almost annual basis.
He had little difficulty in attracting benefactors to defray the publishing costs. Though he was unable to carry out his plans right away (Doresh Tov, Street Louis, 1923, p 5), he did visit again within a year, this time together with Rabbi Zevi Hirsch Masliansky.
He finally settled in Jaffa by the end of the summer of 1923 and he was invited to preach a number of times at the Neveh Tzedek synagogue.
Attempts to settle in Safed in 1936 and in Jerusalem between 1938 and 1939 failed as well and he returned to America each time. He returned once more a few years later, this time remaining until his death in 1944. He was buried on the Mount of Olives.
He also founded the first Talmud Torah in Washington, District of Columbia and many of his sermons refer to the poor state of Jewish education.
An active Zionist, Silverstone attended the Sixth Zionist Congress in 1903 as a delegate from Belfast.
Membership
Rabbi Silverstone was a vice president of the Agudath Harabbonim, a director of the Hebrew Sanitarium of Denver and the Hebrew Home for the Aged of Washington, District of Columbia, and a member of B"nai B"rith.