In his first lecture on R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinksi for Torah in Motion, history professor Marc B. Shapiro says: “He’s the only example of a Jewish pope. Not just a spiritual leader but a temporal leader. He was a leader not just religiously but politically, in a way that no other rabbi has been in history, certainly in the 20th century. He was important to the entire Orthodox community. You can’t compare him to Ovadiah Yosef or Rav Elyashiv because they only appeal to certain groups. The religious Zionists don’t care what Ovadiah Yosef or Rav Elyashiv say and these rabbis don’t care about the religious Zionists. Ovadiah Yosef comes closest to that, but even with him there are large segments of the population that don’t listen to him.”
“R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinksi was the first gadol Yisrael. He was the first universally recognized sage and leader.”
“He was viewed as the last word in halacha (Jewish law) in the 1920s and 1930s.”
“Rav Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor played this role [toward the end of the 19th century]. He was involved in politics.”
Rav Spektor did not have the influence of Rav Grodzinski for many reasons, including the lack of communication technology in Rav Spektor’s time and his lack of an organization to rival Agudath Yisrael (which got going in the 20th century).
“Rav Grodzinski was regarded as a leader by Jews of all sorts. He probably wrote 50 letters a day. They are not like the letters of any other gadolim… They have him as a political leader.”
“In one area, his great influence was negative in a way that no gadol Yisrael today would have that sort of influence. I refer to him squashing the plans to move the German Rabbinical Seminary to Israel. That was a terrible error that negatively affected Jewish life in Israel to this day.”
“When Rav Shach came out against moving a seminary to Jerusalem, nobody paid attention to him. If YU wants to open a branch, we’ll do what we want.”
