(a Tzeischem Lesholom for HaRav YD Ushpal upon leaving for America, Otwock, 5698)
Shimon Goldman was a 14 year old kid from Shedlitz, Poland who escaped with Tomchei Tmimim Bochurim to Vilna and then through Russia to Japan and Shanghai, China. In his memoirs entitled “From Shedlitz to Safety” recently published in English he recounts those days.
We begin on page 139 in a paragraph entitled "Disgraced by fellow Jews";
(edited for brevity, HT)
"In the US a select group of Torah giants came together and formed the "Vaad Hatzalah". Their primary function was easing the plight of the many displaced Yeshivos struggling for survival in Shanghai and other places. Officially money was alloted acording to the number of students in every Yeshivah. The money was chaneled through Switzerland. Reb Yisroel Zuber, a Chabad Chossid and a graduate of Tomchei Tmimim, lived in Switzerland at that time, and he worked very hard to ensure that all the money would indeed reach Shanghai.
Sadly, certain factions of the VH decided that Chabad Bochurim would not get a single dollar of this charity. Whenever an envelope of money reached Shanghai it was always accompanied by a letter specifying "EXCEPT FOR CHABAD!". Hence, while the students of Mir and other Yeshivos received generous stipends to help them eat and buy clothes, the students of Tomchei
Tmimim had to fend for themselves.
(Yeshivas Tomchei Tmimim, Warsaw, 5690's)
The irony of the situation was not quite lost on the Mirrer Rosh Yeshiva, Reb Chaim Shmuelevitz. These life-saving funds reached their destination due to a Chabad Chossid - Reb Yisroel Zuber - and were now being mailed to Rabbi Ashkenazi (Reb Meir, the Chief Rabbi of Shanghai, HT), another Chabad Chossid. Yet, Chabad Bochurim could not get their rightful share of the money! Reb Chaim felt ill at ease about the entire matter and remarked wryly, “The Torah giants of our time could live in true harmony, were it not for the constant meddling and interference of their attendees.”
The monies were addressed to RMA. He and RCS distributed the money but we received NOTHING.
Some postulated that it was due to a dispute over a second fund that the FR established for victims of Communist and Nazi persecution, a fund of which the accounting was kept secret. Certain Gedaylim believed that the FR was hampering their fund-raising efforts because people believed that he was also sending money to Shanghai, which was not the case. They resented this secrecy and retaliated by excluding Chabad from the VH fund.
The FR, after seeing the suffering of his Talmidim, ordered RaSHaG to start another fund, “and he managed to send us considerable sums of money. Due to his untiring efforts we escaped hunger and death.”
Nice, no?
32 comments:
Tzig
why the kid gloves, why not name names? If all the Lubavitch-bashers have no problem attacking the Rabbeyim, why should you?
At least HT presents a bit of the other side of the story, and I give him credit for that.
Let me ask something though. If this whole thing went through two Lubavitchers, in Switzerland and Shanghai, and the thing was as evil as Goldman depicts it, why did those two Lubavitchers allow it ? Couldn't they refuse to go along unless that were changed ? Perhaps that indicates that the matter was more complex.
C
freg efsher besser:
why did the Mirrer Roshei Yeshiva allow it? :)
Goldman was a Peylishe Yingel who became Niskarev in Vilna and later on. I don't think he'd make things up, cuz he's not that type of person, and he didn't have the old-time dislike for Misnagdim.
I happen to know R'Shimon well, he is a very decent fellow and would feel uncomfortable that you use his stories to try and cause machlokes.
He is from Gerer chasidim iirc.I remember that he said over from R'Chaim Shmulevitz that if not for the meddlers there would be no machlokes.
I did not live during that period but from what I understand Lubavitch did very little for the those stuck in Europe, had no Shacyhus with the Va'ad Hatzolah etc.True that Lubavitch at the time was a small organization
vml
fardrey nisht the conversation. He's the one who printed the story after all these years, so whatever the point was...
Maybe it was his opinion that it was davke the askonim, shvitzers, that caused the trouble, but why?
A while ago there was a discussion in here related to a book 'Comrade', about R. Lipschutz, a Lubavitcher Shochet in Russia, by a R. Goldvasser. It was stated that the book was edited alot, that Lubavitcher connections were removed. I wonder if and how this book by Reb Goldman may have been edited as well, though perhaps in the other direction ? It's something to think about and perhaps look into.
C
That's exactly it! I believe the book was edited to cover up for certain - shall we say - "high ranking" officials in the VH. Had he wanted to he could've made much more of it, including naming names of Roshei Yeshiva he believes issued those directives. וד"ל
is there any documentation from that era about this..copy of the envelope or letter that said 'except lubavitch',...after all, this is history seen through the eyes of a 14 year old yeshiva bochur who didn't simply witness an event but rather is postulating a entire conspiracy theory...
reasonably
getting documentation from that period is hard enough, especially from something as controversial as that.
Seeing you and your friends excluded from an event does not make it a "conspiracy". Claiming that the moon-landing never happened and that the pictures are from the space station parking lot, that's conspiracy.
I happen to believe that there is truth to the basic idea.Lubavitch was excluded, probably true.Reasons, probably very justified.....
Wanting to do there own fundraising, while excluding themselves from helping out the clal.
We all know how much money and useful political connections was spent to try to save some books in Warsaw
and we all know how much money that could've gone to rescue efforts was used for printing Shasen in Shanghai during the war.
2 words Ahron kotler
or בר קאטילא
Amshinover
let's hear what you know, c'mon!
as your friends from nitra what the blood shas is
Hirshel:Lets speak facts, ok?
Va'ad Hahatsla, R'Aharon Kotler,Mike Tress, Tserei Agudah etc did amazing hatsolah work, fundraising ETC. EVEN being MECHALEL SHABBOSS!!!(and you know how difficult that is for 'snags!)You have Some questions.....ok, nu,nu.
Now lets be positive now:Just tell me what Lubavitch inc. did during the war........just tell me....
Easy to criticize, eh....when you are busy ....doing nothing...
HT - What I meant was that editing could have been the other way too, in the anti-Litvish direction.
If this was the other way around, and you'd be accusing Lubavitch of excluding Snags from the chalukah, the burden of proof would be on me, in your eyes, to prove that they didn't. Here's a guy who was there and says it happened, he says he starved, he says, elsewhere, that a Bochur died of hunger!
Oh, and stop with the Artscroll books already, you're having too much Kool-aid. Once RAK went to Washington on a train on Shabbos, he wasn't mechalel Shabbos constantly. It was to save the "yeshivaleit" and maybe some Rabbonim.
C
Ich farshtey vos du zogst. I just don't think that it could be edited "up" in this case.
a Freilichen Shabbos.
Tzig:I want to understand:You censored my comment to a gemayneh ,cynical hater, but left his original diatribe against someone respected by many and founder of a MAJOR mokom torah.
Is the honour of an such a rov by you a Lubavitcher,EVEN less than an anonymous poster.
Sad to say but I really believe the answer is yes!
Is this something you saw by the Rebbe?
you make a crazy assumption about him using the soap made of dead Jews, that's why I censored it. He just repeated something he heard used against RAK.
Bp,
You have it wrong.I don't think that everybody is perfect including even chosheveh yidden.Lubavitch are the ones that 'fagetert' their Rebbes in other more realistic circles we believe that everybody is human.
bp
"Then I stand corrected.?", is that the best you could do?
Bp,
I WAS NOT MODEH!
I said that in general a person is a human being, even a rov can make mistakes.I'm not talking about 'maseh nevoloh' though, and neither I nor you, nor Tzig know enough about what happened then to have an idea.
But about "rescuing seforim" you do have an idea, right?!
?טא וואס האקסטו אין קאפ
The attempts to rescue the library in Warsaw are documented in Alteins book,ok?
(Altein is the daughter of Rabbi Jacobson who spearheaded the saving of Raya'tz from burning Europe)
and the attempts to discredit Lubavitch are documented in Shimon Goldman's book. SG is the son-in-law of Yochonon Gordon.
Shimon is away at an ayneekels simcha.Mazel Tov
you tried calling him?
The guy in Zurich was not on the scene. But if the money came to R Meir Ashkenazi, and he knew the Lubavitcher boys were starving, why did he not simply give them what they needed, and dare the misnagdim to make an issue of it? This just doesn't make sense.
milhouse
you ask a a fair question, I just don't know the answer. Maybe his hands were tied and he couldn't do with the money as he wished, especially since it was earmarked for the other yeshivaleit. That's how he tells the story.
As an aside: Rabbi Zuber did not live in Switzerland at any point. He lived in Sweden.
To c who asks about the book being edited like the book Comrade was edited. The answer is no. Goldman's book was published by Goldman! Comrade was published by Targum Press. R' Lifschitz, whose life's story the book is supposedly about, protested mightily about how his story was distorted.
http://goldwasserstory.blogspot.com/
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