Yehuda fine biography of william hill

Talking with Kids
An Interview with "Times Square Rabbi" Yehuda Fine

Interviewed by Chris Mercogliano
Originally published in the Journal For Living, Number 21, 2000

For ten years he prowled the pre-dawn nether world around Times Square.

But his goal, unlike the other middle-aged white men he passed in the night, wasn't to score drugs or sex from homeless, strung-out teenagers. Rather, his self-appointed, one-man mission was to throw them a lifeline, to help them find a way off the streets and back to the daylight world of the living.

Sometimes he worked miracles, sometimes not.

Yehuda fine biography of william hill

Some young people were determined not to be saved. Others reached for the rope, but were already suffering from diseases such as AIDS, in which case he helped them to make peace with themselves and their lives before the end.

In time he became known as the "Times Square Rabbi." That he was an ordained member of the clergy was far from apparent, however.