Obituaries - April 3, 1996

Ralph Simon; Former President of Rabbinical Assembly

Ralph Simon, 89, a former national president of the Rabbinical Assembly. A native of Newark, N.J., Simon was educated at College of the City of New York, Columbia and Yeshiva universities and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. He served as rabbi of Congregation Rodfei Zedek in Hyde Park, a suburb of Chicago, for 44 years. During that time he was general chairman of Chicago’s Combined Jewish Appeal and Metropolitan Bonds for Israel and founded Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, the first in an international movement of Hebrew-speaking camps sponsored by the Jewish Theological Seminary. In 1985 Simon published a volume of sermons, “Challenges and Responses.” On Friday in Palm Springs.