....אבל אנחנו עמך

HaRav Reb Tuvia Goldstein saw the difference between Chassidim and ליטאים in Siberia....

Reb Tuvia tells us how in Siberia the Litvishe bochurim found excuses and reasons why they were exempt from mitzvos. The Matzos wouldn't have a shiur and it would be too cold to sit in the Sukkah. [He was the pride of Kamenetz and Baranovich before being exiled to Siberia by the Russians in Vilna.] The Chassidim did not seek such excuses and had mesirus nefesh for mitzvos even while in Siberia. He would sing a niggun that he learned from the Lubavitcher Chassidim from Nevel, the Jews who knew not of a reason not to sit in the sukkah, now matter how cold. Reb Tuvia tells us how the Litvishe Bochurim האבען זיך געפטר'ט מיט לומדות.... The Chassidim didn't know of such heterim. He also tells us how the Gr"A and the first misnagdim would never have made the "cherem" if they had seen the (Chabad) Chassidim in Siberia and the mesirus nefesh they had. Something tells me this book doesn't sit well with some in the Misnagdic community.

the cover of the new book

מיכאל אוישי באשרייבט דער שוחט פון זאפאראזשע

Read Here

א געשיכטע פון אידישע מסירות נפש פון דורות אין אמאליגען סאוועטן פארבאנד

Beis Rivkah's "charidy" campaign yields a treasure!

The main Beis Rivkah Girls School in Crown Heights, which educates some 2,000 girls, is having major financial difficulties, and is trying to climb out of it. So they started a Charidy campaign to raise a million dollars in 24 hours. All or nothing. To pay teachers for last year. Nothing else. A noble cause, to say the least. It's tough paying teachers when you have a hard time collecting tuition. They're well on their way as of the time of writing this post. $360k in a few hours. And this isn't pledges to be paid in months/years. This needs to be MITB. Maybe that's TMI for some of you. Anyway, what they found lately was this book, embossed with gold letters, and inside we see an inscription from the Rebbe, זי"ע, who at the time  - Elul 5710 - had not officially the mantle of leadership, ווי מ'רופט עס, of Lubavitch. The Rebbe had been appointed נשיא of the Beth Rivkah schools, among many other public missions, after they had been founded in Elul of 5702. Then too Beis Rivkah, which was basically educating many, many Jewish girls for free, had hit a brick wall and was in major debt. A campaign was launched to clear the debts, and those who contribute to the fundraising campaign would be inscribed in this book. It's not clear to me - מי אני ומי אני - if this book of names would be read on the Tziyun of the Frierdige Rebbe, who was nistalek on Yud Shvat of that year, but it would make sense.

To Donate

The cover of the book

The Rebbe's כתי"ק

Henry Rosenblatt's play-by-play (watch till the end)

Is Ezra Friedlander selling us out for his client Jerry Nadler's sake?

See his op-ed here.

Some surprisingly sensible comments there too.

We don't do politics here much, but this is different. I understand the Satmarites saying stuff like this, the whole baloney "loyal to the government" shtick they do. But Ezra? Does he not worry about our good fortune?! In Jerry Nadler we trust, is it? Just because? Is the Chasidic garb to make me feel better when he says trust Jerry? Or is the "grandchild" of Holocaust survivors" line supposed to calm me down? Maybe some people are just plain alarmists. Granted. Maybe Dov Hikind falls under that category. And then there are those that always take the Ipcha Mistabra route. The one guy in shul. But to do this just to please a client is ewwwwwwww.

Yitzchok Stroh's review on Prof. Marc. B. Shapiro's latest work

On Seforim Blog

Monday Afternoon - we're still here!

COL.org.il on Vimeo.
Chimen Abramsky's Socialist book collection
100th Yohrtzeit of R' Reines
Yiddy Lebovits realizes his dream of living in Eretz Yisroel
Rav Tsvi: R' Chaim Berlin's hesped on his father

R. Zelig Ruven Bengis

May be pictures no one has, R Bengis was R Dov Yehuda Schochet's uncle, married bezivug sheini to his mother's sister, daughter of RYC Ziv.

RZRB
Raizel Rosa Bengis
Rav Yosef Calev Ziv

פיינע אלטע בילדער

ממראות הנחת אבן הפינה לישיבת חכמי לובלין

הרב שמחה פרענקל-תאומים מסקאווין שני מימין

חזון אי"ש

מימין: הבלאזשובער, הגר"מ פיינשטיין, הבאיאנער והנאוואמינסקער בדאטשע

הטאהשער רבי זצ"ל והרבנית הזקנה ע"ה

הגראי"ה והגרי"ח

הגרי"ח וחתנו עם הנשיא מאסאריק מטשעכאסלאוואקיא

א-ל-ו-ל אין סלאבאדקע

While the baalebatishe Yeshivishers like to think that they have a shaychus to the Eretz Yisroel'dikke Olam HaTorah; The Reb Dov Landads and Reb Moshe Hillel Hirshes are already saying shiurim. Let's see them pack up the bungalow colonies and head home before Rosh Chodesh Elul, even if it is mid-August and the Beis Yaakovs only start after Labor Day. Then again, if they wouldn't have their summers who knows how much less giving they'd do. Efsher iz besser azay?

More Photos Here






























Reb Moshe Hillel Hirsh


Reb Dov Landa

CC Levaya

That's what it says, what do I know? Ay, where's the mittah? Maybe they were rounding up the rear. Maybe these were the shleppers who couldn't put the kids to bed earlier. Maybe the old fellow with the beard was there to make seder.

Summer Chizuk - Reprinted with permission from Yated Ne'eman

Summer is a time we can use to be mechazeik people in a way we can’t during the year. For example, on Monday, Rav Yeruchim Olshin, rosh yeshiva of Bais Medrash Govoah in Lakewood, used the opportunity presented by bein hazemanim to visit Shalom Mordechai Rubashkin in prison. But it wasn’t that simple. Reb Yossi Ostreicher, who accompanied the rosh yeshiva and drove him to the jail, worked hard to arrange this visit. Shalom Mordechai was so excited that the rosh yeshiva would be coming to visit him. Imagine this Yid sitting alone in jail, cut off from the outside world. Imagine when he hears that the Lakewood rosh yeshiva is coming to visit him. He couldn’t contain himself. The rosh yeshiva was equally happy that he would be able to be mesameiach the locked-away, humble Yid. I spoke to each of them on Sunday and was happy that the visit was going to come about. Then, Sunday evening, Rav Yisroel Meir Yagen zt”l, a Lakewood kollel yungerman and son-in-law of Rav Gershon Ribner shlit”a, was tragically niftar. Rav Olshin would have to forgo the visit to Shalom Mordechai. He would be devastated, but how could the rosh yeshiva not be at the levayah? How surprised I was when Shalom Mordechai called me Monday afternoon. I learned a serious lesson in middos and in mesirus nefesh for another Yid. I learned a lesson in gadlus ha’adam more potent than a mussar shmuess. Rav Yeruchim woke up pre-dawn, davened vosikin, got into the car for the 2-½ drive to Otisville, NY, stayed with Shalom Mordechai for twenty minutes and then headed back to Lakewood to attend the levayah. He had the best excuse not to go. Who would not understand that he couldn’t make the visit? He had to be at the levayah. Anyone could accept that. Shalom Mordechai, the Lubavitcher Yid he had never met before, would surely understand. But instead of forgoing the five-hour trip on a difficult day, the rosh yeshiva chose to be moser nefesh to raise the spirits of a Yid. They only spent a few minutes together, but every time Shalom Mordechai ponders his fate, he will be emboldened because of the gadlus of a person who used the opportunity presented by summer to lift up a fellow Jew.

תואר פני כ"ק אדמו"ר ר' משה'לע מסטולין זצ"ל הי"ד

With my sincererest apologies to my Karlin-Stoliner friends who don't like to share... This is a visa/passport application in July of 1926. Moshe son of Yisroel Perlow. There are a few pictures of the Stoliner Rebbe, but this is special, in my humble opinion. The others are from a distance and not clear. Reb Moshe'le was a great lover of Israel and the Jewish People and visited the Holy Land on several occasions. He and his family were murdered in Stolin in 1942. Today's Stoliner Rebbe is his younger brother Reb Yochonon's grandchild.

With thanks to Yuri Dorn

Monday Links and Goodies

Artist Zalman Kleiman - 20 years
Hespedim at the levaya of RRK
frum people using Reform Rabbis to fight Beis Din?!
TORONTO SAGES: Prominent rabbis of blessed memory
כיצד כותבים את ההיסטוריה של יהדות הונגריה בישראל

POTD - summertime with the holy Ribnitzer

Did Lubavitcher Chassidim save Rishel Kotler ע"ה's shidduch?!

A young Reb Shneur in Chevroner Yeshiva. Wiki Photo.

There's a bit of legend mixed up in the facts, but the basic story is as follows. (Lubavitchers always get their facts wrong, don't they?) The late BMG'er Rebbetzin escaped to Shanghai via Kobe, Japan. (Regardless of what Wikipedia says. she didn't go Eretz Yisroel in 1940) Before the war she was already engaged to Reb Schneur, who made his way to Eretz Yisroel, studying in Chevroner Yeshiva. After the war RSK traveled to the US to be reunited with his father. Rishel was stuck in Shanghai until 1947. So said her son Aron at the levaya. So the chosson and kallah were apart for some 6-7 years. During that time Rishel contacted typhus or TB. I forget which. She of course recovered, but only after Reb Meir and his Rebbetzin nursed her back to health. She was also apparently smuggled into the US by Lubavitcher bochurim. That's how the Lubavitcher version goes. The Kotler family was still worried and thought about breaking off the shidduch, as we say in Brooklyn. The story goes that the late Shanghai'er Rov, Reb Meir Ashkenazi, grandfather of the late KfarChabad'er Rov, who was held in high regard by all who came in contact with him, was asked to intercede on Rishel's behalf. He went to the Frierdige Rebbe who sent him to the Rebbe who told him what to do. Basically, that since they wrote the Tenoyim already that they're required to keep the shidduch and they should be told as much. In the end it all worked out - and the rest is history.

Reb Aryeh Malkiel Friedman. Photo Source

The funny thing is that the Kotler family made no mention of it at the shiva. Despite the fact that R' Shragie Kotler married a granddaughter of Reb Meir Ashkenazi. They have a totally different version. I heard from people who were there at the shiva that according to the sons SHE was the one who wanted to break off the shidduch - or at least she told them that she was no longer a yachsan, since her father was a Baalbatisher Yid  and a Talmid Chochom, but he's no longer alive. Her father was, after all, a Slabodker talmid and a chaver of RAK, and she saw that as her only right, so to speak, to enter into a family such as the Kotlers. And also that she had been ill and that the doctors say that she will not be able to bear children. According to the family it was her future shver that was to have told her that since Reb Elchonon Wasserman הי"ד was the one who made the shidduch in the first place that there was nothing to worry about, and that the shidduch must go on. B'chol ofen, ווי עס זאל נאר ניט זיין, it makes for good conversation. Agav, I mentioned to a Lakewood talmid friend of mine who grew up there that based on what they say of her, how she cared poshut b'gashmius for every talmid, that the title "Mother of Klal Yisroel", which was bestowed on the very righteous Rebbetzin Kanievski by the editors at Artscroll, would be much more suited to the BMG'er Rebbetzin than to her, simply for the amount of talmidim and talmidos she came in contact with and helped out. Zol zee zayn a gutte betterin far di gantze BMG mishpoche.

זעלבסטמארד איז א רעזולטאט פון תורה און אמונה'לאזינקייט - Guest Post

Hirshel 

I see you are busy on some big project,  but in the meantime put this on for all the Suscher Katzes and Shulem Deens, they didn't invent the wheel of misfortune.

Poland in the 20's and 30's, when the OTD winds blew in to the charedi homes; suddenly the rash of suicides started. A unknown phenomenon. But they called it "a result of foresaking Torah and faith." They weren't mental health professionals, but that's what they were saying. 2015 is no different, the great organization Footsteps will not help these inflicted souls. Reading up on this issue I see that there is much disagreement about the achievements of Footsteps, some claim Footsteps does not deliver anything other than the 4 times a year party, while others say otherwise. I have no real opinion either way, just passing it along.

(the views and opinions expressed in the above post are those of the guest writer, and do not necessarily represent the views of the host of this blog.)

------- ביז'ן קרעטשמע דארף מען אויך א שנעפסל until I can finish what I'm working on enjoy these pictures

Reb Yosef N. Kornitzer of Krakow, left, with his cousin Reb Shlomo Sofer of Bergsaz, right.

(right) Reb Zalman Sorotzkin of Lutzk, son in law of Reb Lazer Gordon of Telshe, and (left) Reb Shmuel D Unger of Nitra.

Kenessiah Gedauloh

מרן רביה"ק מסאטמאר זצ"ל בעת ביקורו בארה"ק ת"ו

Noam Elimelech 1942 edition censored

"Dear Tzig,

I recently came across an edition of the Noam Elimelech printed in New York in 1942 by Joshuah (Osias!) Wagschal. Interestingly it also contains letters of recommendation by the RAYATZ and Rav Herzog. Needless to say that later reprints of this specific edition ( I also have one from around 1980) have these letters deleted." - end of email.

The two letters both address him as הרה"צ, yet the emailer calls him Joshua (Osias!). Maybe that's what his stationery said? I'm kind of at a loss here. I should ask him, I know. Maybe he'll chime in in the comments. Is it the קארטשינער-פריסטיקער רבי? hard to tell. Let me see what we can learn from our readers.