Rav Reuven Dov Dessler Z”Tl

38 JT 19 February 2015 FEATURE Montagu Road 125th Rav Reuven Dov Dessler ztl This year marks the 125th anniversary of the consecration of Edmonton Federation Cemetery. Many illustrious figures from the Jewish community of yesteryear are buried there. To mark this significant anniversary, the Jewish Tribune is looking back at the lives of some of them. N THE Western section of Edmonton highly successful timber merchant in Federation Cemetery lies the kever of the Lithuanian city of Gomel (known in IRav Reuven Dov Dessler ztl, who was Yiddish as Homel) where he was affiliated niftar in London in 1934 (14 Teves 5695). with the yeshiva of the Alter of Novardok. Rav Dessler moved to London in 1931 to He and his brother, Reb Chaim Gedalia ztl, be close to his son, Rav Eliyohu Eliezer were able to support the yeshiva with the Dessler ztl, who at the time was acting as profits from their thriving business. In the the Rabbi in the Ein Yaakov Federation early 20th century, Rav Dessler was also Affiliate shul on Heneage Street in the East able to provide financial backing for the End. (He later moved to a new position yeshiva of Rav Yaakov Katz of Riga, who at the Federation’s Montague Road Beis had moved his institution to Homel and Hamedrash in Dalston.) found lodgings in the Dessler home. The cramped streets of the East End Unfortunately, all this came to an however, were a far cry from the atmosphere end with the onset of the Communist of kedusha in which Rav Reuven D ov Dessler Revolution. The Desslers’ timber business was raised. Born in 1863 (5623) in the city failed, losing vast sums of money, and Rav of Libau, Latvia to R’Yisroel Dovid Dessler Reuven Dov was forced to flee through and his Rebbetzin Chinka Hinda, his father Russia, making his way back to Kelm was a friend and close associate of the Alter through a series of miracles. He reached of Kelm, Rav Simcha Zissel Ziv. By the age Kelm in 1918 and was established as the of 11, Rav Reuven Dov was learning at the new director of the Talmud Torah, taking feet of the Alter, as a student in the famed over from Rav Simcha Zissel’s son Rav Kelm Talmud Torah, remaining there for Nachum Zvi, who was niftar in 1916. close to 25 years until the petirah of the Rav Reuven Dov first travelled to Alter in 1898. In his later years, the Alter London in 1928 for medical treatment, of Kelm suffered from precarious health accompanied by his son Rav Eliyohu and was forbidden to speak – Rav Reuven Eliezer. Rav Reuven Dov returned to Kelm Dov assisted him greatly in the running of thereafter, but his son decided to remain the Talmud Torah, even delivering shiurim in England to try and recoup some of the that R’Simcha Zissel had written. The Alter family’s financial losses, taking up the valued him highly, publicly praising his rabbinic position at the Federation. By Yiras Shomayim and commenting once that 1931, R’Eliyohu was able to bring over his it would have been worth establishing the wife, Rebbetzin Bluma (a granddaughter Talmud Torah for Rav Reuven Dov alone. of the Alter of Kelm) and their children In 1891, Rav Reuven Dov married Hene to London to join him. Rav Reuven Dov, Freidel, the daughter of R’Eliyohu Eliezer by then aged 68, accompanied them and Grodzensky ztl. His only child, Eliyohu lived with the family until his petirah in Eliezer, was born a year later. However, December 1934. it was not long before tragedy struck. In Rav Reuven Dov was buried at Edmonton 1895, Rebbetzin Hene Freidel became ill Federation Cemetery, but in the Kelm and passed away, and although Rav Reuven tradition, no matzeivah was erected over Dov later remarried, to Frume Rochel his grave. It was only put up some 25 years Rabinowitz of Telz, more difficulties were later, in 1960, by a relative (similarly, on the way – Frume Rochel was killed in a matzeivos were also later erected over terrible domestic accident in 1922. the graves of Rav Eliyahu and Rebbetzin By the time World War I broke out in Bluma Dessler in Bnei Brak on the advice 1914, Rav Reuven Dov had become a of the Steipler Gaon)..

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