Shimon Paskow

I was very sorry to hear of Rabbi Paskow\'s passing. Of all the people in the LA area, I am probably the only one who knew him he longest. We met at the Lubavitcher Yeshiva in the Weequahic section of Newark, NJ, in 1946, I think it was. Seymour, as I knew him then, was in the 8th grade, and I was in the 6th. I think we had a grand total of 7 or 8 kids in the school, and education in the secular subjects was in one room. The 8th grade kids sat in the row near the window, and the 6th graders (all two of us) were two rows away. In an environment like that, there really was no class status, and we all hung out together. I lived in Orange, NJ, and had to take two buses to get to the yeshiva which was a real pain, especially in bad weather, so in March of that year, I withdrew from the yeshiva and returned to public school in Orange. I lost contact with Rabbi Paskow until 1971. My current wife and I were living in an apartment house that was owned by a young Jewish couple that had been married by Rabbi Paskow, and we were looking for a rabbi to marry us since we were unaffiliated at the time. They recommended Rabbi Paskow. The name was nor familiar to me since I knew him by the original name before it was shortened. When the rabbi was told what my name is, he remembered me from th yeshiva. We were married in the rabbi\'s study, and as you might imagine, a goodly amount of rime was spent reminiscing about our days at the Newark Lubavitcher Yeshiva.