Reb Elimelech 'Mike' Tress a"h and Agudas Yisroel

Mike Tress (July 9, 1909 – July 9, 1967) was a Jewish American who served as the national president of Agudath Israel of America from the 1940s until his death. He was a major figure in the movement's expansion and its chief lay leader. Mike Tress was the son of an immigrant and born in the United States. Before and during the Second World War, he founded various youth organizations to counteract assimilation. Mike Tress was President of Agudath Israel of America for many years, helping the organization become one of the greatest political, communal, and cultural representations of the Orthodoxy of its time in the United States. Mike Tress led the organization until his death; Moshe Sherer , his protege, succeeded him. To finance Agudath Israel and help Jews escape from Europe, Tress gave up his career as an entrepreneur and used his fortune to do so. He rescued many European Jews at the time of the Holocaust through his engagement.