Rav Yoel Teitelbaum Zt”L (1887 - 1979) Known As “Reb Yoelish,” Was the Saintly Rebbe of Satmar
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Biographies of Great Men Mentioned Within the Pages of this Book Rav Yoel Teitelbaum zt”l (1887 - 1979) known as “Reb Yoelish,” was the saintly Rebbe of Satmar. He was already a highly regarded Rebbe in Hungary and when the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944, he was rescued from death in Nazi-controlled Transylvania as a result of a deal between a Hungarian official, Rudolph Kastner, and a deputy of Adolf Eichmann. Although Kastner intended to rescue only Hungarian Zionists on a special train bound for Switzerland, R’ Yoel and a few other religious Jews were also given seats. (It has been said that this was the result of a dream in which Kastner’s father-in-law was informed by his late mother that if the Grand Rabbi of Satmar was not included on the train, none of the passengers would survive.) En route, the train was re-routed by the Germans to Bergen-Belsen, where the 1600 passengers languished for four months while awaiting further negotiations between rescue activists and the Nazi leadership. In the end, the train was released and continued on to Switzerland. R’ Yoel briefly lived in Jerusalem after World War II, but, at the request of some of his chassidim who had emigrated to the United States, he settled there instead and established a large community in the densely Orthodox neighborhood of Williamsburg located in northern Brooklyn in New York City. * Biographies * 313 Rav Yitzchak Zev Halevi Soloveitchik zt”l (1886-1959) known throughout the world as the “Brisker Rav” (“rabbi of Brisk”) was the oldest son of the great Rav Chaim Soloveitchik zt"l of Brisk. He was the rabbi of the Jewish community in Brisk and was the rosh yeshivah of its yeshivah. While vacationing away from his home, World War II broke out and he was unable to return to Brisk. He lived in Warsaw and later moved to Vilna, where he was looked upon for guidance by so many suffering Jews. He was fortunate and was able to flee the Holocaust together with three of his sons. His wife, mother and three small children perished. When the Brisker Rav was in Europe and all was burning, he had a choice where to escape: America or Palestine. Despite the danger posed by the German army, which at that point had already reached Egypt, he chose to go to Jerusalem, because in Jerusalem, he said, “there is a small group of Jews who truly fight for the honor of Hashem Yisbarach .” In a place where the Jews never gave up the fight - that would be the guarantee that he would raise good children and future generations. He moved to the Holy Land, where he re-established the Brisk Yeshivah in Israel. In Jerusalem he continued educating students as his father did, with what would come to be known as the Brisker derech (the “Brisk method” or “Brisk approach”) of analyzing Talmud. * 314 * Heroes Of Spirit Rav Aharon Rokeach zt”l (1877 - 1957) was the fourth Belzer Rebbe in the illustrious line of the Belzer Chassidic dynasty. He was Rebbe from 1926 until his passing in 1957. Known for his piety and righteousness, R’ Aharon was called the “wonder rebbe” by Jews and gentiles - even the Nazis - alike for the miracles he performed. R’ Aharon’s rule as rebbe saw the devastation of the Belz community, along with that of many other chassidic dynasties in Galicia and elsewhere in Poland during the Holocaust. During the Holocaust, R’ Aharon was high on the list of Gestapo targets as a high-profile Rebbe. He and his brother, Rav Mordechai of Bilgoray, spent most of the war hiding from the Nazis and moving from place to place, with the support and financial assistance of their chassidim both inside and outside Europe. Eventually, they were taken out of Europe via a series of escapes, many miraculous in nature. R’ Aharon and R’ Mordechai immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1944. The two lost their entire extended families, including their wives, children, and grandchildren. * Biographies * 315 Rav Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam zt”l (1905 - 1994) was the first Klausenberger Rebbe, founding the Sanz-Klausenberg chassidic dynasty. He was known for his personal righteousness, kindness toward others, and Torah wisdom that positively influenced whole communities before, during and after the Holocaust. He was a natural leader, mentor, and father figure for thousands of Jews of all ages. The Klausenberger Rebbe became one of the youngest rebbes in Europe, leading thousands of followers in the town of Klausenberg, Romania, before World War II. When the Nazis invaded Romania, he was taken away from his family and incarcerated under terrible conditions, in a number of concentration camps. The Nazis murdered his wife, eleven children and most of his followers. He managed to survive through his great faith and encouraged others to believe all throughout the war. After the war, he rebuilt Jewish communal life in the displaced persons camps of Western Europe, re-established the Klausenberg dynasty in the United States and Israel, and rebuilt his own family with a second marriage and the birth of seven more children. * 316 * Heroes Of Spirit Rav Aharon Kotler zt”l (1891 - 1962) was a prominent rosh yeshivah in Lithuania before the war, and later became the leader of the yeshivah movement and litvishe Jewry in the United States of America, where he built up one of the first and largest yeshivos in the U.S. After learning in the famed Slabodka Yeshivah in Lithuania, he joined his father-in-law, R’ Isser Zalman Meltzer, to run the yeshiva of Slutsk. When the Soviets took over, the yeshivah moved from Slutsk to Kletsk in Poland. With the outbreak of World War II, R’ Aharon and the yeshivah relocated to Vilna, then the major refuge of most yeshivos from the occupied areas. Through the intervention of American Jewry, R’ Aharon was able to escape Europe for the United States via Siberia, but many of his students did not survive the war. He was brought to America in 1941 by the Va’ad Hatzalah rescue organization and soon assumed its leadership, guiding it during the Holocaust and using any means at his disposal to try to rescue the remnants of European Jewry. In 1943, R’ Aharon assumed leadership of Bais Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, New Jersey and continued to lead American Jewry until his untimely passing in 1962. Today, Bais Medrash Govoha has grown into the largest institution of its kind in America with thousands of students and married kollel members, as well as a number of satellite yeshivos. * Biographies * 317 Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l (1895 - 1986) was a world-renowned posek (halachic arbitrator) and was regarded as the supreme rabbinic authority for Orthodox Jewry of North America. R’ Moshe grew up Uzda, near Minsk, Belorus, where his father was rabbi. In 1921, at the age of 26, he became rabbi of Luban, near Minsk, where he served for sixteen years. Under increasing pressure and torment from the Soviet regime, who enacted decrees to limit his authority and control over the community, he moved with his family to New York City in 1937 where he lived for the rest of his life. Settling on the Lower East Side, he became the rosh yeshiva of Mesivta Tifereth Jerusalem. He later established a branch of the yeshiva in Staten Island, New York, now headed by his son Rabbi Reuven Feinstein. In the Orthodox world, it is universal to refer to him simply as “Rav Moshe” or “Reb Moshe.” R’ Moshe became the leading halachic authority of his time and his rulings were accepted worldwide. He was a dedicated, selfless and beloved leader for the Jewish people to whom anyone could approach at any time with any problem. * 318 * Heroes Of Spirit Rav Eliezer Silver zt”l (1882 - 1968) was the president of the Agudas HaRabbonim of America and among American Jewry’s foremost religious leaders. He helped save many thousands of Jews in the Second World War and held several rabbinical positions in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Ohio. R’ Silver convened an emergency meeting in November 1939 in New York City, where the Va’ad Hatzalah (Rescue Committee), was formed, with R’ Silver as president. He spearheaded its efforts in rescuing as many European Torah scholars as possible from Nazi Europe. He launched a fund-raising drive that raised more than $5 million, and also capitalized on an exemption to U.S. immigration quotas allowing entry to ministers or religious students. At his direction, synagogues in Cincinnati and across the country sent contracts to rabbis, thereby securing 2,000 emergency visas that were telegraphed to Eastern Europe. R’ Silver used all channels, whether legal or not, to save as many lives as possible by bringing Jews to the U.S., Canada and the Holy Land. Sympathetic foreign diplomats provided fake visas for immigration; counterfeiters were paid to produce phony passports. In October 1943, as the scale of Nazi atrocities was becoming clearer, R’ Silver helped organize and lead a mass rally of more than 400 rabbis in Washington to press for more decisive action by the US government to save European Jews. After the war, he distributed relief funds and helped expedite visas to Jews in eight European nations - wearing, with government permission, a U.S. Army uniform for extra protection in areas where anti-Semitism was still rife. When donations were insufficient, R’ Silver often spent his own money to meet refugees’ needs. * Biographies * 319 Rav Avraham Yehoshua Heschel zt”l (1888-1967) the Kapyschnitzer Rebbe, was renowned for his supreme kindness and great ahavas yisrael (love of ones fellow Jew).