Stayed in Hungary - for now... (Part V)

The new building you see was built after I left. A building on the right - not seen here - was at first the pre-school and later the Mesivta, where shiurim and meals took place.

It seems like I didn't keep my promise, after all. At the end of part IV I promised not to make you wait very long for Part V, but I guess I got caught up in other matters and never did get back to "myself." So all this talk about Spinka reminded many of you about my memoirs, and I got lots of requests to continue them, which I'll begin doing right here.

Mesivta Shem MiShmuel of Mattersdorf sits at the corner of 19th Avenue and 50th Street. The fact that they added "Mattersdorf" to the name shows you where they were heading. Before that there was no Mattersdorf on the building, or even on the stationery, AFAIK. Yes, the Roov was the Mattersdorfer Rov, or "miLefnim Ab"D Mattersdorf," but it wasn't some Mattersdorfer franchise that he was running. But in the late 80s somebody decided that the only way they could continue having a mesivta and yeshiva gedola was to give it a franchise name. Things worked out for a while, and for several years the mesivta was running just fine, but only for a few years. For a few years many of those who learned in the Cheder and came from places like Flatbush and Staten Island, would stay on for Mesivta. But that would soon come to an end. A few years after I arrived an entire class from Mesivta got up and left after 11th grade. The Beis Medrish (Yeshiva Gedola, zal) was not to their liking and they all decided that they would not be going there. IIRC there was no 12th grade at that time, or 3 years mesivta was the normal setup then, I forget which, so after 11th grade you had to go to Beis Medrish, and many of the boys were not willing to do that - for several reasons.

Rav Shmuel Ehrenfeld, late Mattersdorfer Rov and Rosh Yeshivah, with his son Akiva, who took a more Litvishe route in life.

The Beis Medrish at that time was made up of mainly holdovers from the old days. Lots of extended family and old talmidim. There was no official kolel by then, but a lot of the old timers came and learned there. The Beis Medrish uses the actual shul that serves as the shul for Baaleibatim on Shabbos. In short, it wasn't a very pleasant situation for those Flatbush and Staten Island kids. But I'm getting way ahead of myself, talking about years later! First we need to discuss what happened while I was there, and some of the personalities I had the pleasure of getting to know. People like Rabbi Gurewitz, zg"z, who was menahel of the mesivta at that time, a Novardhikker with a car from the 60s and a man who I would've liked to have known better while I was there. I was too young to get to know him, just as I was in Spinka, and he left - IIRC - a year after I arrived there. People like Reb Hershel Cohen, z"l, a Talmid of BME and a Yid a true Yerei Shomayim, who I merited to have as a maggid shiur. Rabbi Cohen suffered terribly later on as Parkinson's ravaged his body and took his away (what we see as) before his time. He was a true Rebbi and taught as as we were his own children, caring about our progress in learning and in midos tovos and yiras shomayim.


So when I say I stayed in Hungary I need to actually be a bit more clear. Yes, Mattersdorf - in the Sheva Kehillos - does fall into the category of Hungary, but it sure was different than Spinka. As different as an "Emberrer" from Budapest was to a chossid from Selish. The goyim might speak Hungarian in both cities, but boy was life different, and boy were the Yidden different there. In Spinka there were Litvishe Maggidei Shiur, yes, but we had one only for Shiur Bekius ("Girseh" in Lubavitch lingo) The older bochurim had people like Reb Gershon Neuman and Reb Yerachmiel Ungarisher full time. We had Chassidishe Maggidei Shiur most of the day, and the Litvishe were there only to teach and to instill a derech haLimud, not to make policy, chas vesholom. (Ironically enough they both are quite un-Litvish, with Neuman a Viener and Ungarisher a Litvak only from his mother, who was a daughter of Reb Ruven Grozovsky.) In other words they didn't dictate policy or set the tone there. In Mattersdorf they reined supreme. In Mesivta we had all Litvishe Maggidei Shiur - as far as I can remember - with one Chassidishe Maggid Shiur for Shiur Bekius. Yes, the Roov came ocassionally to give a shiur or shmuess, but that didn't set the tone, and neither did Shalisheedes in camp, it was the boys and the staff, and if you closed your eyes it could've been a Mesivta in Lakewood or Flatbush.