Felder, Gedalia, 1922-1991 : Rabbi Gedalia Felder was one of Canada's most prominent Orthodox rabbis. He was both spiritual leader of Shomrai Shaboth-Chevra Mishnayoth Congregation of Toronto and a member of the five-man Beth Din of America (under the auspices of the Rabbinical Council of America) based in New York. Rabbi Felder was born in Iczyki-dolne in Galicia (now Poland), in 1921. After studying at Yeshivat Keter Torah Radomsk in Cracow, he immigrated to Canada in 1938, where his father had settled in 1929. He continued his rabbinical studies in Toronto and received smicha (rabbinical ordination) in 1940 from Rabbi Avraham Price, one of Canada's leading Orthodox rabbis of the day. After serving in several small Jewish communities including Sarnia, Belleville and Brantford, Ontario and as part-time chaplain in the Royal Canadian Air Force from 1943 to 1945, he was appointed rabbi of the oldest orthodox congregation in Toronto-Shomrai Shabbat, in 1949.
For many years he taught Talmud in major Canadian institutions of Jewish learning. He was also responsible for the formation of the community's Kashrut Commission and served as its chairman. Much of Rabbi Felder's original correspondence dealt with his major interests, including religious divorce law, Jewish education and Kashrut (Jewish dietary laws). His extensive correspondence, most of it in Hebrew, is extremely important for the study of current mores and values affecting Jews and spanning all shades and branches of Judaism in the North American setting. As one of the foremost Halakhic authorities of his day, Rabbi Felder corresponded with many of the great Talmudic scholars, thinkers and rabbanim. His correspondence includes letters from Moshe Feinstein (NYC), Joseph Henkin (NYC), Yitzhok Yakov Weiss (Manchester & Jerusalem), Shmuel Yankel Reubenstein (Paris), Yechiel Weinberg (Switzerland) Tzvi Pessah Frank and Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (both of Israel) and Yakov Kaminetsky. Canadians included in the correspondence are Avraham Price and Pinchas Hirschsprung.
A prolific rabbinic scholar and author, Rabbi Felder published 11 major rabbinical works on Jewish law and its practice in contemporary Canadian life. His major achievement was a compendium of halakhic decisions from recent responsa, arranged according to the order of the Orah Hayyim. Six volumes of the commentary, entitled Yesodei Yeshurun, have appeared since 1954. Two volumes deal with the laws and customs of daily prayer, three deal with the laws of the Sabbath, and one with the laws of Passover. He also published two monographs, both entitled Nahalat Zvi, on adoption (1959), divorce (1972), and conversion (1979). There is also a volume, Peri Yeshurun, which is an expansion on the laws and customs of daily prayer. Rabbi Felder brought his scholarship to bear on many modern dilemmas facing Jews around the world, in a volume of responsa, She'elat Yeshurun (1964).
Rabbi Felder passed away in 1991.
