Greater Hartford lost a leading light in June with the passing of Rabbi Lazowski zt’’l. He assumed many roles throughout his long life serving the Greater Hartford, CT community, but perhaps the most remembered and cherished was his innate ability to build bonds of understanding and goodwill among many people of diverse faiths and backgrounds.
Recounting how his boyhood ended at age eleven during the Nazi occupation of Poland, Rabbi Lazowski tells of the horrors he witnessed and experienced in his book, Faith and Destiny. He was a Holocaust survivor who never lost his faith or will to live, nor his belief in human goodness. Surviving the tragedies of war led him to believe in the strength and resilience of the human spirit because he, himself, was proof. This belief was a cornerstone of how he lived his life and how he shared it with the many lives he touched.
Emigrating to the United States, Rabbi Lazowski rebuilt his life, married Ruth Rabinowitz and continued to fulfill his mother’s wish that he “become a learned man” with degrees from Yeshiva College, Brooklyn College and the Jewish Theological Seminary. At the age of 32, Rabbi Lazowski was ordained in 1962 and served as the spiritual leader of Beth Shalom Synagogue in Hartford, CT until its 1969 merger with Beth Hillel Synagogue in Bloomfield. He continued his role as spiritual leader there for 40 years until retirement at age seventy and Beth Hillel’s merger with Emanuel Synagogue. As Rabbi Emeritus, he continued to share his legacy of faith, service and devotion for an additional 25+ years.
In the many years of his life in Hartford, CT, Rabbi Lazowski had distinguished tenures as chaplain for the Hartford Police Department and the Institute of Living at Hartford Hospital and as Deputy Senate Chaplain for the State of Connecticut. Additionally, he provided guidance and experience in leadership roles for many organizations such as Educator’s Council of Connecticut and the Jewish Council of Hartford.
Beyond synagogue and community service roles, Rabbi Lazowski was an educator and a prolific author of 16 books, with the most recent, Transforming Darkness into Light, published in 2025. He wrote and spoke about what he knew personally: teaching young people about the Holocaust and advocating for the passage of legislation mandating Holocaust education in Connecticut schools.
Rabbi Lazowski’s mother’s last words to him as she urged him to flee their imprisonment, as revealed in his book, Faith and Destiny, ring true: “I want you to live, my son. May God show you the way. The world will someday need you.”
JHSGH is fortunate to have multiple recordings of Rabbi Lazowski in its digital collection, linked below along with the video of his funeral at the Emanuel Synagogue in West Hartford.
Rabbi Philip Lazowski
