It is with great sadness that Matzav.com reports the petirah of Rabbi Dr. Joel Rosenshein zt”l.

Rabbi Rosenshein was a man of uncommon breadth and depth, someone who wore many hats and wore each one with distinction.

A veteran child and family psychologist whose career stretched back to the early 1960s, he stood at the forefront of mental health and special education long before such fields were understood or accepted. Alongside his professional brilliance was a deep sense of achrayus, which led him to devote his life to helping the most vulnerable—children with learning disabilities, families in crisis, and individuals cast aside by society.

In 1962, Rabbi Rosenshein served as a psychology intern at Rusk Rehabilitation Center, the world’s first rehabilitation hospital. During that formative period, he had the rare privilege of meeting Dr. Howard Rusk, the legendary pioneer of rehabilitation medicine. The lessons he absorbed there shaped not only his professional approach but his entire worldview.

Throughout his internship, he learned that technical expertise alone was insufficient. True healing, he believed, required understanding the person behind the diagnosis and connecting to their inner hopes. One of his earliest cases involved a 19-year-old young man who had been critically injured during a smoke-jumping accident when his parachute malfunctioned, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. The young man, deeply embittered, resisted therapy and rebuffed every intern assigned to him.

When Rabbi Rosenshein took over the case, he carefully researched the young man’s background and learned that his lifelong dream had been to become a pilot, an ambition that now seemed shattered. Through determination and creative thinking, Rabbi Rosenshein discovered that while the young man could no longer fly solo, he could realistically train as a co-pilot. He presented this possibility to him with sincerity and confidence, outlining a concrete plan: first earning a living as a radio announcer, then saving toward flight training. For the first time since the accident, the young man smiled. Encouraged and inspired, he began to cooperate with therapy, ultimately becoming a radio announcer and later a trained co-pilot, going on to build a successful and meaningful life. For Rabbi Rosenshein, this case embodied a lifelong truth: real therapy meant speaking to the heart.

Another early case left an equally profound mark. A young man named Bruce, paralyzed from polio and isolated in Goldwater Memorial Hospital among elderly and terminal patients, had become deeply disturbed and threatening, writing hostile letters to public officials. Rabbi Rosenshein recognized that Bruce’s rage stemmed from crushing loneliness. Defying protocol, and with approval from senior leadership, he arranged for Bruce to spend ten days at home during the December holidays. The transformation was dramatic. Upon his return, Bruce told him, “Put that pen away, doctor. You’re a real person. I can talk to you.” The young man soon turned his life around, eventually attending law school and becoming an attorney. Once again, Rabbi Rosenshein had seen what happens when a human being is treated as a person rather than a case number.

As he completed his training, Rabbi Rosenshein was offered a historic opportunity: if he passed the New York City Board of Education psychology exam, he would become the first school psychologist assigned specifically to children with disabilities. At the time, the very concept of addressing the educational needs of the handicapped was revolutionary. Disabled individuals were routinely hidden away or institutionalized, often under horrific conditions. In the broader system, there were no frameworks like Hamaspik or Yeled V’Yalda. Institutions such as Willowbrook in Staten Island housed thousands of neglected and abused individuals.

Although he was offered a position at Willowbrook, Rabbi Rosenshein accepted Rav Moshe Feinstein’s guidance and instead joined the New York City Board of Education. After passing the exam, he officially became the city’s first psychologist dedicated to serving handicapped children.

Together with the renowned neurologist Dr. Stanley Lamm of Long Island College Hospital, who volunteered his services for a symbolic salary of one dollar a year, Rabbi Rosenshein began building an entirely new system. Assigned to Waverly Place in Brooklyn, they developed innovative programs for severely handicapped children and presented detailed proposals to the Board of Education.

As public awareness grew and parental advocacy intensified, national change followed. The passage of Public Law 94-142—the Handicapped Education Law—mandated that every school district in the United States provide appropriate educational services for children with disabilities. Rabbi Rosenshein resolved not merely to comply with the law, but to build a functioning infrastructure from the ground up.

Drawing on methods he had learned during a pivotal summer working at a specialized camp for the handicapped in Kerhonkson, Rabbi Rosenshein embraced a team-based approach, uniting psychologists, speech therapists, educators, and social workers. He helped introduce innovative assessments such as the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Ability and championed the idea of teaching children according to their strengths rather than their weaknesses.

As Director of Evaluation and Placement for Special Education in New York City, Rabbi Rosenshein oversaw the creation of district-based offices staffed by multidisciplinary teams. Under his leadership, the system expanded rapidly, eventually encompassing all 32 school districts and conducting tens of thousands of evaluations annually. For the first time, teachers and educators became full partners in crafting individualized education plans for students.

When leaders of the Jewish community, including Dr. Joseph Kaminetsky and Rabbi Moshe Sherer, raised concerns that Jewish children were being excluded, Rabbi Rosenshein took action. With encouragement from Dr. Helen Feulner of the Board of Education, he convened concerned parents, leading to the founding of P’tach, Parents for Torah for All Children, in 1975. P’tach revolutionized special education in the Torah world by integrating specialized classrooms into mainstream yeshivos and Bais Yaakovs. Within months, children who had been written off were learning Chumash and Mishnayos for the first time, and the model soon spread nationwide.

Budgetary constraints eventually led to Rabbi Rosenshein’s departure from the Board of Education, but his mission only expanded. He accepted leadership of Mishkan in Boro Park, guiding the organization for 21 years. Under his direction, Mishkan grew from serving 40 children to 500, with a budget exceeding $21 million, and played a central role in the post-Willowbrook era of community-based care.

Rabbi Rosenshein later served on the Commissioner’s Planning Board of OPWDD, representing Orthodox interests at the highest levels of state planning. Even after mandatory retirement from JBFCS/Mishkan, he remained deeply active as a consultant to P’tach, Rofeh Cholim Cancer Society, and Torah Umesorah, while maintaining a private practice and advocating legally for children denied services.

He also established an annual Torah Umesorah award recognizing exceptional dedication in the field of mental health chinuch, ensuring that the values he championed would endure.

In addition, Rabbi Rosenshein was a pioneering member of Vaad L’hatzolas Nidchei Yisroel, participating in clandestine missions to the Soviet Union and later helping strengthen Jewish life in places such as Tbilisi and Baku. These experiences, including accompanying Rav Matisyahu Salomon and witnessing the spiritual hunger of forgotten Jews, profoundly shaped his life.

For more than six decades, Rabbi Dr. Rosenshein devoted himself to healing minds, strengthening families, rescuing the forgotten, and building institutions that transformed the Torah world. His wisdom, compassion, and vision changed countless lives, and his legacy will continue to be felt for generations to come.

He is survived by his wonderful children and their families, who follow in his ways.

Yehi zichro baruch.

{Matzav.com}

Jooish News

Jooish News