By Jacob Miller-
Rabbi Barry Robinson passed away this Rosh Hashanah, on September 10th, at the age of 73.
Born on the West Side of Chicago on April 28, 1945, to Abraham and Hadassah Robinson, Robinson, Rabbi Barry Robinson grew up in an apartment building that housed both his family’s apartment and his grandparents’ apartment on a different floor. He attended the Telz Yeshiva in Cleveland for the first two years of his high school career, and then switched to the school that evolved into Ida Crown. Because of his advanced knowledge, Rabbi Robinson learned in the Beis Medresh instead of his grade-level class.
After high school, Rabbi Robinson attended the Illinois Institute of Technology. Initially a civil engineering student, Rabbi Robinson switched his focus to chemistry. Rabbi Robinson enjoyed the theoretical component to chemistry, but was not skilled in the lab: He recalled an experiment he conducted outside the fume hood that was dangerous, and, he joked, almost killed somebody. After this fiasco in the lab, Rabbi Robinson changed his major again, to computer science, in which he earned his Bachelor’s.
Rabbi Robinson’s computer science career was multifaceted and involved both business and academia. Rabbi Robinson lectured as an adjunct professor in computer science at Northwestern University and co-founded a company he named Scientific Information Retrieval (SIR) that sold his and his friend’s invention--a code that was precursor to Google. Rabbi Robinson was eventually forced out of his own company, but was never bitter about the incident, an example Rabbi Barry Robinson’s son, Rabbi Yaakov Robinson, claims is testament to his father’s middos (attributes). Later in his life, Rabbi Robinson consulted on matters relating to computer science.
Rabbi Robinson met his wife, Susan, at his friend’s sukka. They married and raised five children. Rabbi Yaakov Robinson recalls his father was a constant presence, but was never in the way. “He was always the smartest guy in the room, but he never made you feel that way,” Rabbi Yaakov Robinson explained. He had an easy going personality and an infectious smile that “enhanced people’s lives…and made people feel good.” The one thing his father demanded, Rabbi Yaakov Robinson recalls, is that his children behaved like mentchs and exhibited good middos.
Rabbi Robinson enjoyed diverse interests and hobbies. He learned to play the guitar as an adult and coached his children’s baseball and basketball teams. He was also known to work on crossword puzzles and write short, funny poetry. He enjoyed learning Torah and shared this joy with his children.
Rabbi Robinson led a daf yomi shiur in the community to fill the vacancy left by Elliot Cohen. Although Rabbi Robinson preferred learning gemara in depth, he began to appreciate the breadth of knowledge acquired from learning daf yomi.
In 1999, Rabbi Leonard Matanky, dean of ICJA, asked Rabbi Robinson and to teach the senior boy’s lower-level gemara shiur at the Academy. Robinson accepted. Rabbi Robinson continued teaching at the Academy; eventually he switched to the highest-level senior boy’s gemara shiur, and he began teaching courses in mathematics and computer science.
In an email to Rabbi Robinson’s current students, Rabbi Matanky wrote “Rabbi Barry Robinson z”l was an exceptional person. He was a talented teacher and an outstanding role model, and we will all miss him very much.” Following his death, former students of Rabbi Robinson took to Facebook, praising their Rebbe. Erez Kaissar, ‘18, posted on Facebook, “Your stories, jokes, and brilliance made class particularly special. You had an ability to relate to your students that no teacher has ever had.”
Ida Crown provided bussing to Rabbi Robinson’s funeral, which was very well attended, by more than 1,100 people. He leaves behind his family, the Chicago Jewish community who appreciated him for his brilliance and his daf yomi shiur, and the Ida Crown community who will always remember their teacher, Rabbi Robinson’s, smile and zeal for Torah learning.
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