Joseph B - Family and Last Years

Family and Last Years

During the 1950s and 1960s, until his wife's death, Soloveitchik and some of his students would spend summers near Cape Cod in Onset, Massachusetts, where they would pray at Congregation Beth Israel.

Soloveitchik's daughters married prominent academics and Talmudic scholars: his daughter Tovah married Rabbi Dr. Aharon Lichtenstein, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion in Israel (with a PhD from Harvard University); his daughter Atarah married the late Rabbi Dr. Isadore Twersky, former head of the Jewish Studies department at Harvard University (who also served as the Talner Rebbe in Boston). His son Rabbi Dr. Haym Soloveitchik is a University Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University. His siblings included Dr. Samuel Soloveichik (1909–1967), Rabbi Ahron Soloveichik (1917–2001), Mrs. Shulamith Meiselman (1912–2009), and Mrs. Anne Gerber (1915–2011). His grandchildren have maintained his heritage and also hold distinguished scholarly positions.

As he got older he suffered several bouts of serious illness (Alzheimer's Disease preceded by Parkinsons Disease). Family members cared for his every need. He died on Hol HaMoed Pesach (18 Nisan, in 1993, at the age of ninety. He was interred next to his beloved wife, Tonya Lewit Soloveitchik, in Beth El Cemetery in the Baker Street Jewish Cemeteries, West Roxbury, Massachusetts.