Simon Potok

Simon Potok, 58, Rabbi in Rockland Published: June 3, 1996

Rabbi Simon Potok, who headed the Nanuet Hebrew Center in Nanuet, N.Y., for 20 years and was a founding board member of a New York Holocaust studies center, died on Tuesday at his home in Nanuet. He was 58.

The cause was a brain tumor, his family said.

Rabbi Potok became head of the suburban New York congregation in 1975. He was given emeritus status about a year ago.

He was a founding board member of the Rockland Center for Holocaust Studies in Spring Valley, N.Y. The center was established in 1988 to preserve the history of the persecution of Jews in Europe, present museum exhibits and provide study materials.

He was born in the Bronx and graduated in psychology from Hunter College. He was ordained in 1963 at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he also received a doctor of divinity degree.

He is survived by his wife, Hindie Melnik Potok; two daughters and a son, Shulie, Yoninah and Yehudah, all of Nanuet; a brother, Rabbi Chaim Potok, the writer, who lives in Merion, Pa., and two sisters, Charlotte Hering of Delray Beach, Fla., and Bella Sobolofsky of Riverdale, the Bronx.

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/03/nyregion/simon-potok-58-rabbi-in-...