5750...
This is basically how I remember Shaye Braun, pronounced Brown, as in "Bro" and "own." בראון. He was Yossel then, or was it Shaye then and it became Yossel later? I forget. His zeide was the בעל שערים מצויינים בהלכה. I came to Yeshiveh Ch'san Sofer soon after he left, so I never got to have the zechus of being in the Yeshiveh at the same time... But I knew that he was out there. His spirit still roamed the halls on 50th Street. People talked about the fact that he left Tchebin after being there for a little while and went to Tomchei Tmimim. It was a big deal. He was a top bocher and the fact that he defected meant something, no matter what you thought of Lubavitch. Yeshiva Ch'san Sofer had several more defectors at that time, several were very closely related to the Mattersdorfer Rov, and I doubt they were happy to see that happen. And then I began to see him in 770 when he came back from the Holy Land. If you come from where I come from, and at my age, seeing faces like that was always very comforting, IYKWIM. There was also this one time where he got up on a chair while waiting on line with tons of other bachurim at a Youth Corps sign up in Boro Park, and chazzered ah sicha to all assembled, but that's for another time...
Ch'san Sofer was going through a major transition at that time, and not in a good way. They were losing bachurim daily, and one year lost a whole class. A whole class from Mesivta packed up and left, and there was no class for that age the next year. They had lost whatever appeal they had. Most kids from that background went to the more popular newer yeshivos, whether Litvish or more mainstream Chassidish, and a Parve/Chassidish/Oberlandisher Yeshiva like YCS was left high and dry. You can handle people with no family connection abandoning ship, but once your nephew's kids do it, then it begins to hurt. Which is what happened at YCS. It recovered after a few years, loit vee ich farshtey, but I'm not sure if the character is the same as it was once was, and if the Beis Medrash levels also recovered or only the Mesivta. As far as Reb Yossel B is concerned; he had left YCS for Tchebin, so the fact that he went over to Lubavitch could technically be looked at as not really affecting YCS, but I would think that they expected him to come back for Kolel, something that obviously didn't happen. Expecting him to stay there forever was probably not reasonable, since most bachurim see it as necessary as going to EY to one of the good yeshivos there.
5770...
I'm not here to discuss his politics, whether or not he's a Meshichist or not, and whether or not to elect him without really knowing him was a good idea. After all, most people in CH had never heard of him, save for what they were told by the people that picked him and think that they can control him. I'm also not here to discuss why the dayan HaRav Rosenberg from mechon LeHoro'oh saw fit to call for elections so quickly. They had "managed" for years without a third Rov, so why not allow for a few more weeks until people need to decide on a lifetime position? And we can all discuss the fact that they took a minus 40 Rov in CH, which is ironic to say the least. This after they had Rav Marlow, originally from Newark, Rav Osdoba, from the Bronx, from a Gerrer family, Rav Heller, from Lugano, a Brisker Galicianer. They finally got Reb Yankel Shvei, a Gezha Talmid Chochom, to fill a seat, back in 5763, to the delight of the older Gezha people. I personally think (hope, and pray) that Reb Yossel will be his own man and not allow himself to be controlled by the trouble makers in CH. They've never dealt with a guy like him, so they don't know what to expect. I see good things happening in CH, despite not really caring, I'm sorry to say. I think most people who don't live there have totally disconnected themselves from all the Politics, and from the community in general. They visit and shop, but they're turned off, for several different reasons, שאין כאן המקום להאריך בהם.
This business of a new rov is called in litvishe yiddish, "fareyden di tzeiner."TELL ME ONCE AND FOR ALL:WHY IS THERE A HALBERSTAM IN BOBOV, AN ALTER IN GER,A HAGER IN VISHNITZ AND WHY IS THERE NO SCHNEERSOHN IN LUBAVITCH? BY THE WAY,WHAT IS THE OPINION OF THE NEW ROV ON THE RESULTS OF THE WORLD SERIES OF HASSIDIC SOFTBALL RECENTLY PLAYED IN LUBAVITCH SHEBELUBAVITCH? By the way,when the Rebbe ZT"L was alive did they use a designated hitter or did the pitcher hit? Why there is nobody from the Beis Harav who can be a Rebbe? Really?
ReplyDelete"Why there is nobody from the Beis Harav who can be a Rebbe? Really?"
ReplyDeleteas Yankel Miller of Yarma said why did Chaim Mendels son not become a badchan after his father died? because a badchan darf kenen
That means you are under 40? Wow. You have the wisdom of a zaken and the exuberance of a younger man.
ReplyDelete, שאין כאן המקום להאריך בהם
ReplyDeletewhy not? if you are turned off from Kan Tzivo Hashem....why not share it with us here ? was your transition to chabad the the reuslt of an open mind or a one track mind ?
how does one become "X-Gezha?"
ReplyDeleteisn't that like your ancestry?
My friend HT,
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately you're right about "I think most people who don't live there have totally disconnected themselves from all the Politics, and from the community in general. They visit and shop, but they're turned off, for several different reasons, שאין כאן המקום להאריך בהם."
v'ho gufo tzoro. At the end of the day, CH is the center of Chabad, not the ohel, not yudel krinsky's exec suite, not some shliach's storefront. And what happens in CH affects everyone of us wherever u live. It affects the chinuch of our children R"L, our own hiskashrus, and much more. It's about time that anash living around the world wake up to this reality before it hurts them. We can only hope that RYB will disappoint big-time his supporters and be the smart independent thinking person he can be.
Hirshel Tzig - הירשל ציג asked
ReplyDeletehow does one become "X-Gezha ?
by realizing that kaan tzivo hashem... is a empty slogan, after moving away from crown heights,
and then marrying into a BT family that are more chasidish then all of my siblings i realized again that Gezah is as relevant today as Hitlers ym"s ideology on race
X Gezha
ReplyDeletethe concept of Genes was not invented by Hitler it is here to stay with you.
Seen it hard
ReplyDeleteI disagree CH is not the nerve center of Chabad today, Must of chabad is not being educated their.
My first question is why a place like Chasan Sofer had people leaving in droves.....what went wrong ? Did it not have enough of a shita ?
ReplyDeleteMy second question is why people like him like to speak at chasidishe gatherings (e.g. Boro Park types) is it to show that they made something of themselves or to try to bring everyone over to their side ????
i do see the parallel of Hitler promoting a super race and chabads gezah above all both have no credence whats so ever
ReplyDeleteso your post is this:
ReplyDelete"chabad has no talmidei chachumim and must find hunkies like me to lead the way.
If he was in Melbourne, he wouldn't be running to Crown Heights so fast. Lubavitch in Sydney is not doing itself any favors by letting its most talented people go.
ReplyDeleteThough at the end of the day, this works out well for the Head Shliach's family dynasty.
Noting
ReplyDeletethe question is different why are the Talmidie Chachomim attached to a place with no torah, no gelt.
do these talmidie chacomim love am aharatzim?
think about it.
I spoke to him at my son's sheva brachos in Sydney about a year ago. There was an interesting story going around regarding his payos and how they disappeared. He told me that the allegation that they were forcibly cut off were not true.
ReplyDeleteI also spoke at his Shule at a Siyum HoRambam. He is a big Talmid Chacham who pulled me up later over something I said :-) A nice fellow.
PS. I have no doubt he is a meshichist.
If this is wrong for the yomim noroim, why is this okay now?
ReplyDeleteMind you I think this is one of your more parve posts but I find the hakdoma perplexing.
I was a young man who wanted to be accepted to the yeshiva in Grodna. I came from a poor family so we couldn't afford traveling expenses. I was given a little bit of food for the three day walk [!] and told that when the food runs out I was to ask Jews to open their hearts and share their food with me. When I finally arrived in Grodno I was exhausted. I was also very nervous about the test. What if I fail and don't get accepted? What an embarrassment it will be for me and my family and then I will have to make the return trip with a horrible feeling. So I made sure to prepare the page of Gemara very well. I was shown to the office of the Rosh Yeshiva, Reb Shimon Shkop. His office was also the kitchen in home. He said to me "I have two questions for you". UH OH! The test was beginning. "The first question is .... When was the last time you had a warm meal?" I thought for a little and answered "Three weeks". Reb Shimon said "My wife is not home and I am not much of a cook but I will do my best". He then proceeded to cook me a meal which I ate - with doubles! Now that I was satiated Reb Shimon said "And the second question ...." UH OH!! Now the test begins for real. "When was the last time you slept on a bed?" I told him that I didn't remember. So Reb Shimon went into a room and prepared a bed for me which I proceeded to sleep on. I found out afterwards that it was his own bed.
ReplyDeleteThat was my fahrher [entrance examination] for the Grodna Yeshiva. Since then I have had many tzaros. I lost my family in the holocaust and many other tzaros. What kept my Judaism alive all those years were those two questions that Reb Shimon asked me on my fahrher for the Grodna Yeshiva.
Lots of organisations like over-promoting 'converts', it's good PR.
ReplyDeleteThe catholics always did the same when they snagged a yiddisher kop.
How is his surname pronounced now? Broin? Brein?
ReplyDeleteBroin as far as I know
ReplyDeleteReb Hershel,
ReplyDeleteThe man could be a great Talmid Chochem but he never received Smicha.
Rabbi Osdoba will never accept him.
The denial of the forceable cutting of his payes is a lie....people around at the time hoped with time it would be forgotten and they were right.
ReplyDeleteIt was confirmed by people who know him.....he denies it because of the implications of a forced conversion.....
The basis for the denial is the obvious parralel with the stories of Reb Pinchas Korf and R Mendel Vechter..
Do we now ban all products with a Chabad hechsher because Chabad rabbanim deny any knowledge of wrongdoing ?
Oh no another Satmar type who found the Hungarian anti-chasidus thing too boring and joined the Salvation Army (Tzivos HaRebbe)
ReplyDeleteThe payes thing sounds like a cover up of a Mendel Vechter like incident.....
ReplyDeleteLet me guess it was Satmarers in Sydney trying to make Chabad look bad....
Why the need to cut off peyos?
ReplyDeleteSee top picture.
Yidden were moser nefesh for peyos.
I notice that Zalman Leib Markowitz has kep this whole Jewish look, peyos ,beard and all though he has been involved with Chabad for many years.
Are there any Satmarers in Australia ....
ReplyDeleteDo they live in Melbourne or Sydney ?
There are Satmarers in Melbourne. I expect Sydney as well, but a minuscule number if at all. There are Toldos Aron in Melbourne as well, and more extreme. They daven together in one shule with Belzer, Viznitzer, Orberlander, Slonimer, Gehakte-leber and all manner of "er" except for Ger and Lubavitch who have their own shules. Many of them are much more radical than their parents and certainly their grandparents.
ReplyDeleteTheir Rov, Rav Beck shlita, is the brother of the infamous Moshe Ber Beck, and is presumed to be not as radical as his brother.
One sect emanating from this group
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/protests/20100720/index.cfm
recently went on an anti-israel protest.
It caused a stir and outrage amongst torah-true jews; not that it will bother those people.
Yes, they live in Melbourne. Why?
ReplyDeleteWhy do they live in Melbourne? I guess "Parnooseh" and is the answer.
ReplyDeleteTheir grandparents and parents were refugees. Some have moved to other countries.
Melbourne was essentially built by European Jews escaping from the ravages of World War 2.
Why do you think that Hashem minds what you say before Yom Kippur but not at any other time?
ReplyDeleteYou learned in the same Yeshiva that Rabbi Braun once learned in.
I have known Rabbi Braun well for the past 22 years. He has always acted in a way that is "passendik" of a ben torah.
Everyone has a right to flourish and develop into a someone, regardless of their background. That's life. Having said that, Rabbi Braun comes with a prestigeous pedigree, so your attempts to concoct a "past" is sad.
Miriam S
Rabbi Braun is an illuy, he won his post justly and he will do a good job.
Ps - "Broin" is the affectionate pronounciation by the community. His surname is "Braun" (rhymes with "fawn"). If you are speaking a haimishe European yiddish you would pronounce it as Braun, rhyming with "own".
Why don't we all just be nice and respectful to each other. You will feel better about yourself and about the world around you.
I'm from Sydney, now in Chicago (via Yerushalayim for a few yrs). I knew him very vaguely, through my mostly negative interactions with Chabad. A friend from Adas Yisroel (which in Sydney is Hungarian, mostly Oberlander) heard shiurim from him and told me that he seemed very sharp.
ReplyDeleteRe the Sydney-Melbourne thing, it's like this. The broader Melbourne Jewish community is very very Poylish, almost entirely post-WWII. With the Poles came lots of Chassidim, of course. The Hungarians, on the other hand, gravitated towards Sydney (also post WWII). As usual, the Hungarians were polarised between pretty assimilated and very frum yidn, and the latter were further divided into the Oberlander, the Chassidim, and those that inhaled some Sydney air and just relaxed a bit. The Chassidim and the more separatist oriented Oberlanders went to Melbourne to join Adas Yisroel down there (which since about the 1970's (I think) has had very few ties to the rest of the Jewish community of Melbourne, unlike in Sydney).
The Hungarians in Sydney had set up a yeshiva pretty early on, but at some point in maybe the 70's they got a Lubavitcher Rosh Yeshiva who basically turned an entire generation of Hungarians into Chabadniks. So what you had when I was a kid was a Lubavitcher yeshiva, where the back few rows were taken up on Shabbos by a bunch of clean-shaven old men davening nusach ashkenaz. Their kids and grandkids talked like Russians, davened nusach ha-arizal, and blabbed on endlessly about the Czar's armies. But they still used to wait for the old guys to finish saying "borukh hashem le-oilom omeyn ve-omeyn" in maariv.
Chabad in Sydney also maintains much stronger links to CH than Melb does. And since I left they went through a series of splits - their current state of affairs is a little unclear to me. And the Hungarians at Adas in Sydney are all going to Litvish yeshivos, and mostly moving away - either to Melbourne, America or Israel. Things are also Litvishifying under the influence of Hungarians learning in Litvish yeshivos, having a Litvish Rov (at Adas), and a huge influx of South Africans into Sydney (who are Litvaks, albeit largely BTs).