Did anybody care enough?

Harav Yisroel Grossman is מזקני חסיד קרלין , the father of Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid a.k.a. "The Disco Rabbi", and an old time Yerushalayimer Yid. He was also Rosh Yeshivah in Tomchei Tmimim in Lod, but that's beside the point. In the Sukkos issue of משפחה he recounts some of his life's stories, including many new revelations like the fact that Rav Isser Zalman's wife called him "Zhunye", but that too is beside the point.

When it comes time to recount the difficult and heartbreaking periods of the early days of Medinas Yisroel one issue takes center stage, namely the fact that most Charedi Mosdos would NOT accept Sefardi and Yemeni immigrant children into their children.

The Jewish Agency was rightfully accused of taking children from Religious homes and placing them in secular schools. A board (what else) was set up to counter these moves and they met with the Agency brass. Their answer was simple, "your Mosdos don't want to take them so we do"!

Reb Yisroel agrees with the notion. "Unfortunately they were correct".

At one of these meetings a Jewish Agency official took aside Rabbi Grossman and told him "why should we argue over facts, let's go and see which are the Mosdos HaTorah that are willing to accept these children, any child that will be accepted in a Yeshivah will be allowed to go study there". What he found out was truly shocking, the only Mosdos that would accept these children were "Batei Avot", a Mosad established by the late Ponovizher Rov, HaRav Kahaneman, and Yeshivas Tomchei Tmimim in Lod.

You make ask, "Tzig, why differentiate between the two"?, why give Tomchei Tmimim the bold and italics and not Batei Avot"? The answer is simple. Tomchei Tmimim, under the Rebbe's directives, accepted these children AS EQUALS, unlike BA. Talmidim of Tomchei Tmimim of Middle Eastern descent received a full Chassidishe Chinuch.

" I stood at the these other Mosdos כעני בפתח and begged them to accept these children, but they just shrugged their shoulders and refused." The Jewish Agency official stood by and watched all this happen, and I stood there shamed. "Ribbono Shel Olam", I screamed, we're speaking about the children and grandchildren of the greatest Sefardi Rabbonim, they will have no Chinuch if we don't do it!

The end result was that hundreds were educated in exisiting mosdos, but Thousands were lost, and for no reason.

Why all the screaming and condemning of the secularists if nobody cared enough to save these souls from Shmad?!

Most of all, how dare these same people condemn Chabad?