Last week, in our first installment of our profile on Rav Moshe Weinberger, we wrote about his early life and his arrival in America where he had an illustrious career in Rabbonus and in matzoh baking. 

Here, we focus on Rabbi Weinberger’s later years and his rabbonus in Boro Park.  

Pesach 1906: Matzoh or the Pulpit

In 1903, two pivotal events shaped the life of Rabbi Weinberger: the passing of his revered father, Rav Yisachar Berish, Dayan of Zborov, and the arrival of his mother, Reitza, in America. Yet an even greater upheaval awaited him just three years later—on Pesach of 1906—stemming from an unexpected source: the matzoh business.

A dramatic headline in the New York Sun captured the moment: “Howling Mob Turns on Rabbi.” On Isru Chag Pesach, hundreds packed into Congregation Beth Hamedrash Hagodel. As Rabbi Weinberger rose to speak, hissing erupted into chaos. Police were called as shouting filled the synagogue. The unrest, it emerged, stemmed from the rabbi’s decision to enter the matzoh baking trade, challenging a longstanding monopoly held by a prominent congregant.

Once order was restored, Rabbi Weinberger tearfully addressed the remaining attendees. He spoke of the eighteen years he had devoted to building the congregation, yet acknowledged the will of the people and announced his resignation. Escorted home by police, he faced jeers from the crowd—an unceremonious end to years of service.

Behind the conflict lay economic tensions. For years, a single bakery had supplied the community. When Rabbi Weinberger opened his own bakery, the move was perceived as competition, igniting a bitter dispute that ultimately cost him his pulpit.

Yet the story did not end there. In Elul of that same year, Rabbi Weinberger published an open letter to the congregation, refusing to fully accept his removal. In it, he sharply rebuked the community, pointing to the decline of the shul and the Beis Medrash that had once thrived with Torah. He lamented the unrealistic expectations placed upon rabbis—expected to serve tirelessly while remaining materially unsupported.

With biting irony, he challenged the perception that rabbinic life brought wealth or comfort, exposing instead the difficult reality faced by rabbanim of the time. His words, however, went largely unheeded.

In the aftermath, Rabbi Weinberger stepped away from the rabbinate for nearly two decades, supporting himself with dignity through the matzoh business that had sparked the controversy.

1922: Bnei Yehuda in Boro Park 

In the year 1922, Rav Moshe remarried to Mrs. Amalie Rubin of Boro Park, and moved into this quiet suburb—a very different place than it is today, one century later.  

Those who pass by the Congregation Bnei Yehuda regularly would notice the cornerstone which testifies that it was laid in the year 1921. It was completed in 1924, and inaugurated amid great pomp and circumstance. It was—and continues to be—a beautiful edifice, and included a Talmud Torah, a sprawling gallery 

The newspapers of the time reported on the six-hour dedication event which attracted large crowds, and we read in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on Monday, June 16, 1924: ... “services within the church were preceded by the singing of the dedicatory hymn, with the congregation waiting outside. Within, the exercises were in the charge of the officers of the congregation. Councilor of the congregation, George R. Rubin  presiding. Officiating were Rabbis [Yosef] Rosen , Peikus , Hirshoren, and Wineberger of Boro Park. Rabbi Wineberger  acted as master of ceremonies.” In 1926, he is still cited by a newspaper as “the Rabbi of Songs of Judeah” in Boro Park.  

Around 1928, Rabbi Mordechai Aaron Kaplan (whom we have profiled in these pages) took over as the official rov of the congregation, and it is unclear under whether Rabbi Weinberger took on that position officially, or as an interim rov.  

Rav Moshe continued to reside at 1703 47th Street in Boro Park, and to operate his matzoh business from the Lower East Side location. At the end of his life, he became unwell, and went to live in the Liberty Nursing Home in East New York, where he was niftar in the late spring of 1940 at the ripe old age of eighty-six.   

His levaya took place the following day from his last residence, and he was escorted to his final resting place on the prestigious Union Field Cemetery, two rows in front of the Rav Hakollel (whose institution he had himself lobbied for in his efforts to enhance Torah observance in America) following a fascinating life rooted in the Hungarian Torah world, following by six decades illuminating the barrenness of America of yore.