SALIT, NORMAN

SALIT, NORMAN (1896–1960), U.S. lawyer, rabbi, and communal leader. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Salit was admitted to the bar in 1920. The previous year he had received his rabbinical degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Salit became rabbi of Temple Israel in the Bronx in 1920 and served as rabbi of Shaaray Tefila synagogue in Far Rockaway, Queens, from 1924 to 1929. Salit combined his legal and rabbinical professions. He headed the Queens County Bar Association committee on legislation from 1933 to 1937,and in 1947 and 1949 ran, unsuccessfully, as a Democrat for the positions of presiding supervisor of Nassau County and of Children's Court judge, respectively. During World War II he was executive director of the Wartime Emergency Commission for Conservative Judaism, which aided congregations whose rabbis had entered military service. In 1935–54 he was president of the Synagogue Council. Salit was an active member of many Jewish organizations. He was on the board of overseers of the Jewish Theological   Seminary of America and the executive committee of the Zionist Organization of America. The World of Norman Salit (1966), edited by Abraham Burstein, contains sermons, essays, reports, comments on the weekly Torah portion, and miscellaneous material written by Salit.