Background
Rabbi Paretzky was born in Razanka, in the Lida District, in what is now Belarus, but was then Poland, in 1917.
Rabbi Paretzky was born in Razanka, in the Lida District, in what is now Belarus, but was then Poland, in 1917.
From the age of ten, he studied at the Yeshiva in Białystok and then advanced to the Yeshiva in Kobrin. Before emigrating from Europe, Rabbi Paretzky briefly studied at the Novardok yeshiva of Bialystk, and was granted Semiha - ordination - by the noted Rabbi Shimon Shkop. In 1938, Rabbi Paretzky came to America and continued his Talmudic studies in RIETS, where he studied with and grew close to its Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Moshe Soloveitchik.
There he developed a close relationship with Rabbi Shlomo Mattis, a principal student of Rabbi Shimon Shkop. He was appointed Rabbi of Young Israel Synagogue of Tremont in the Bronx, a position which he held for more than a quarter century. Rabbi Paretzky is reputed to have been easily accessible to younger students, for despite a generation gap, he appealed to them.
He urged his college students not to skip their daily Talmudic studies during Final examinations.
Rabbi Paretzky earned a master"s degree in Semitics from Columbia University, where his advisor was the well-known historian Professor Salo Baron. His Master"s Essay was about legal aspects of the Virginia"ad Arba Aratzot, the Council of Four Lands in Poland.
He earned a Juris Doctor law degree from Fordham University. In 1964, Rabbi Paretzky returned to the RIETS to serve as a Rosh Yeshiva and Assistant Dean of Admissions to the Dean Rabbi Mendel Zaks.
Rabbi Paretzky assumed the deanship upon the latter"s death in 1974.
Rabbi Paretzky is considered on par with other Rosh Yeshivas of RIETS including Rabbi Dovid Lifshitz and J. B. Soloveitchik. Rabbi Feivel Paretzky died suddenly in 1992, according to Sam Hartstein, a spokesman for YU.
He was a member of the Rabbinical Council of America and the Union of Orthodox Rabbis.