kevarim.com

Source: Anshei Shem

Bio Information: 
Rav Silman who hailed from Uzda, Russia was a leading figure at the Agudas HaRabonim. The Rav was also associated with the Beis Medrash L’Rabonim in Chicago and Mesivta Tifereth Jerusalem (MTJ) in New York City.

Rosh Yeshiva Rabbeinu Yitzchok Elchonon (RIETS) d. 1 Teves, 1953 (5714) Rosh Chodesh / Chanukah Prior to his arrival in America the Rav was a R”M in the Yeshiva of Baranovitch. Anyone with biographical information is asked to please send it in. See CONTACT page for details. Directions to kever: Mount Moriah Cemetery 685 Fairview […]

Rosh Yeshiva Mesivta Torah Vodath d. 28 Shevat, 2005 (5765) Anyone with information is asked to please send it in. See CONTACT page for details. Directions to kever: Monsey Cemetery Brick Church Road (off RT. 306) Spring Valley, NY 10977 (Behind the Vizhnitzer Cemetery, at the end of the main road right,  first section on the […]

In Memorial: 


Photo Caption: Kever of Rebbe Yitzchak Isaac Taub (d. 1821) in Nagykálló, Hungary. The Rebbe, who was orphaned at a very young age is considered the first Hungarian Admor. Credit: Shlomo Reich, Cedarhurst, NY

Photo Caption: Rabbi Moshe Weinberger, Aish Kodesh Rebbe of Woodmere at the kever of the Rebbe, May 2019, Credit: Shlomo Reich, Cedarhurst, NY

Photo Caption: Rav Shimon Schwab, Credit: Wikimedia

Bio Information: 
Rav Shimon Schwab was born and grew up in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. His father was a longstanding members of the Israelitische Religionsgesellschaft (IRG), the Orthodox Jewish community that had established its own independence from the Reform Judaism-dominated general community. The IRG had been led until 1888 by Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch and was then under the leadership of his son-in-law Rav Solomon Breuer.
Rav Shimon completed the Realschule, the local school that combined religious studies and general subjects in conformation with the Torah im Derech Eretz ideology propagated by Rav Hirsch. After the Realschule he was a full time student for a number of years in the Torah Lehranstalt, the local yeshiva founded by Rav Breuer.
In 1924, at age 16, Rav Shimon enrolled in the yeshiva of Telshe where he studied intensively for three years, and afterwards for two years in the Mir, both in Lithuania.
In 1930, he spent a weekend with Rav Yisroel Meir Kagan (the Chofetz Chaim). The visit made a strong impression on him, and he would often refer to the encounter in public speeches throughout his life.
After receiving semicha (rabbinic ordination), Rav Schwab relocated to Germany, where he married Recha Froehlich of Gelsenkirchen, and worked for two years as Rabbinatsassessor (assistant rabbi) in Darmstadt before accepting the post of community rabbi in Ichenhausen, Bavaria.
In Ichenhausen, Rav Schwab worked to establish a traditional yeshiva that would teach Mishnah and Talmud. He also published a booklet titled Heimkehr ins Judentum (Coming Home to Judaism, published in 1934) exhorting his Jewish contemporaries to devote more time to in-depth Torah study and abandon their fascination with modern culture and social progress. Soon after its establishment, the Yeshiva ran into trouble as threats were made by local Nazi activists. Soon after, through the American Orthodox leader Rabbi Dr. Leo Jung he got in touch with a community called She’erith Yisrael in Baltimore. He travelled to the United States, and after a trial period the community elected him as a rabbi. The family was therefore able to apply for visas and escape the Holocaust.
In Baltimore, Rav Schwab became a local leader of Orthodoxy, hosting the annual conference of Agudath Israel several years after his arrival. He was involved in the first Jewish school for girls, Bais Yaakov, and traveled to San Francisco in the late 1940s to act as a lobbyist during the early activities of the United Nations.
In 1958, Rav Schwab was invited to join Rav Joseph Breuer in the leadership of the German-Jewish community of Washington Heights, located in New York City. This community, widely regarded as the spiritual continuation of the pre-War Frankfurt kehilla (community), had been close to the Rav’s heart, and with Rav Breuer’s increasing age and infirmity he took on many leadership roles until the latter’s passing in 1980.
From then until in passing at the age of 86 he continued to lecture and teach until his health deteriorated. He was succeeded after his death by Rav Zechariah Gelley, the Sunderland (England) Rosh Yeshivah who had already joined the kehilla several years earlier (Elul of 1987) as Av Beth Din and Mara D’asra.
Rav Schwab, being a product of both the German Torah im Derech Eretz movement and the Eastern-European yeshiva world, initially identified strongly with the latter. During the 1960s, however, it became apparent to him that the continued emphasis on religious studies and downplay of secular education would be harmful to the community as a whole. He thus wrote his pamphlet “These and Those”, in which he champions the Torah im Derech Eretz approach as being equally valid. (The title of the pamphlet is a quote from the Talmud – Eilu va’Eilu are the words of a Living God”, emphasizing that both approaches are divinely sanctioned.) Other points often discussed in his work the independence of Orthodoxy and the perceived materialistic excesses and expenses of the modern world, especially at weddings. He did not shirk from difficult and potentially controversial questions, such as those concerning the Jewish view on the age of the universe and problems in harmonizing a 165-year gap in traditional Jewish history with scientifically accepted calculations.
Source: Adapted from the Biographic notes in Rav Schwab on Prayer, Wikipedia, and Yisroel (Sidney) Strauss

The Rav moved to Philadelphia in 1905 from Kyiv, Ukraine.

Rav Klein a native New Yorker and talmud muvhack of Rav Shlomo Heiman was the menahel (principal) of the Mirrer Mesivta for over forty years.

Rosh Yeshiva Mesivta Torah Vodath d. 22 Sivan, 2005 Anyone with information is asked to please send it in. See CONTACT page for details. Directions to kever: Beth David Cemetery 300 Elmont Road Elmont, NY 11003

Photo Caption: Rav Dovid Kornglass,  Mashgiach, Yeshivas Ner Israel Baltimore, Credit: Needed

The Rav Kramer  married the daughter of great philanthropist Reb Shraga Frank of Kovno, Lithuania. Reb Shraga had four famous son-in-lawas, the other three were Rav Moshe Mordechai Epstein of Slobodka and later Chevron, Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer of Slutsk, Rav Baruch Hurwitz of Alexot, Lithuania and later Rosh Yeshivah in Slobodka. The Rav’s daughter married Rav Yaakov Yitzchok Halevi Ruderman, Rosh Yeshiva of Ner Yisroel, Baltimore.

Credit: N/N

Credit: Needed

Credit: Needed 

Photo Caption: Rav Eliyahu Meir Bloch, Credit: Needed

Photo Caption: Rav Eliyahu Meir Bloch’s father, Rav Yosef Leib d. 1930, Credit: Needed

Photo Caption: Rav Eliyahu Meir Bloch’s grandfather, Rav Eliezer Gordon, Telzer Rav, d. 1910

Credit: Moreshes Chachmei America

Photo Caption: Kever of Rav Lazer Gordon, Edmonton Federation of Synagogues Cemetery, London, England, Credit: Shloime Marilus, United Kingdom.
Rav Gordon passed away in England on a fundraising trip. See attached document:
Rav Eliezer Gordon London


Photo Caption: On January 1, 1963, a fire broke out in one of the three dormitories at the yeshiva killing two students.  The Rosh Yeshiva at the time was Rav  Chaim Mordechai Katz (d. 1964), a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah

Photo Caption: Rav Henoch Leibowitz  alongside his father Rav Dovid, Credit: Needed 

Bio Information:
Rav Henoch Leibowitz, an only child, was born in 1918 in Salcininkai, Lithuania. The Rosh Yeshiva came to America in 1926 when his father Rav Dovid was hired by Mesivta Torah Vodath as a teacher. In 1933, Rav Dovid left Torah Vodath and founded Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yisrael Meir HaKohen. His father’s death in 1941 left him in charge of the fledgling yeshiva while still in his early 20s. Rav Henoch would spend the rest of his life leading the yeshiva as an International Orthodox Jewish icon. Sadly, the Rosh Yeshiva left no children.

Rav Brus was born in Savin, Poland, his father was a Trisker chossid. He entered Pinsker Yeshiva at the age of 11 and soon after the Kaminetzer Yeshiva where he was among the youngest students of Rav Baruch Ber Lebowitz (1864-1939). Exiled to Siberia during the Holocaust, he miraculously survived and immigrated to the United States where the Rav became a member of the Kaminetzer Kollel on the Lower East Side. He was then invited to lecture at Yeshiva Beis HaTalmud, where he taught for more than 55 years. In addition, the Rav delivered regular lectures at the Kapishnietzer Beis Medrash in Boro Park. Rav Brus who authored Minchas Shaul was always at his gemara and never attended any public gatherings.

Rav Weissmandl who was better known as Reb Michael Ber was born in Debrecen, Hungary in 1903. In 1931 he entered the Nitra Yeshiva where he was considered a prize student of Rav Shmuel Dovid Unger, whose daughter he later married.
The Rav became known for his efforts to save the Jews of Slovakia from extermination at the hands of the Nazis during the Holocaust. Largely by bribing diplomats, the Rav was able to smuggle letters or telegrams to people he hoped would help save the Jews of Europe, alerting them to the progressive Nazi destruction of European Jewry. It is known that he managed to send letters to Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Pope Pius XII. He also unsuccessfully begged the Allies to bomb the rails leading to Auschwitz.
The Rav arrived in the United States a broken man having lost his wife, five children, and community. Although the Rav remarried and had five children, he never forgot his family and community in Europe and was unable to overcome his grief.
In November 1946, the Rav and his brother-in-law, Rav Sholom Moshe Unger, re-established the Nitra Yeshiva in Somerville, NJ, gathering surviving students from the original Nitra Yeshiva. A year later, with the help of Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, a large estate in Mount Kisco, NY was purchased and the Yeshiva relocated. On its new campus, a self-sustaining agricultural community known as the “Yeshiva Farm Settlement” was established.

Photo Caption: Rebbe Yosef Greenwald, Pupa Rebbe, Credit: Moreshes Chachmei America’s Archives

Photo Caption: Kiryas Pupa Cemetery overview. 

Bio Information:
Rebbe Yosef Greenwald, author of Vayechi Yosef and Veyaan Yosef, achieved world recognition as a young man, prior to WW II, as the head of a large yeshiva in the city of Satmar. When his father, Rebbe Yaakov Yechezkiya Greenwald, (1882-1941) the author of Vayaged Yaakov, passed away, the Rebbe was?chosen to succeed him. Rebbe Yaakov Yechezkiya was a son of Rebbe Moshe Greenwald, (1853-1911), the Chuster Rav and author of Arugas Habosem. The Rebbe and his yeshiva relocated to the city of Pupa.
During the Holocaust, his wife and nine children were murdered and the Jewish community of Pupa was destroyed. After WW II, he remarried and began restoring the glory of Pupa.
In the post Holocaust years, the Rebbe provided lodging and meals for hundreds of young men and reestablished his yeshiva. As both father and mother, the Pupa Rebbe arranged sustenance and marriages for his orphaned students.
In 1950 the Rebbe settled in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn and began his congregation and yeshiva anew.

The Rav was born (1913) in Kashau, Czechoslovakia, his father Rav Meir was the Zhidichover Rav of Kashau. As a child, he studied under Rav Shaul Brach, the Kashauer Rav. After his marriage, he replaced his father-in-law (who had moved away) as Kiviashder Rav and established a yeshiva, which ran for six years, until the Nazis arrived in 1944. It is believed that his FIL offered him the Rabbanis as a wedding gift.
In 1944, the Rav was deported to Auschwitz and later Bergen-Belsen, where his parents, wife, and three young children were murdered. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, the Rav married his wife’s younger sister, established a beis din that assisted hundreds of agunos, and arranged education of many orphans.
In 1950 he moved to the United States and settled in Forest Hills where he opened a Beth Medrash. In 1953, under the auspices of the Satmar Rav, he established the Central Rabbinical Council of the United States and Canada.

Photo Caption: Rev Morris Jacob. Raphall, c. 1860, Credit: Library of Congress

Photo Credit: Rev Morris Jacob. Raphall, Credit: American Jewish Archives

Bio Information:
Rev Moshe Yaakov (Morris Jacob) Raphall was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1798. At the age of nine his father, a banker, took him to visit the King of Sweden and then to Copenhagen , where he was educated at the Hebrew grammar-school. He later received a Ph.D. degree from the University of Erlangen (Germany). Soon after, he began publishing the Hebrew Review and Magazine of Rabbinical Literature.

In 1840, when the blood accusation was made at Damascus, he published a refutation of it in four languages (Hebrew, English, French, and German) and wrote a defense of Judaism against an anonymous writer in the London Times. The Rev also published a translation of eighteen treatises of the Mishnah; he also began a translation of the Pentateuch, of which only one volume appeared; and a text-book of the post-Biblical history of the Jews (to the year 70 C.E.).
In 1841 he was appointed Moreh Dasrah (minister) of the Birmingham Synagogue (West Midlands), United Kingdom, and the Rosh Yeshiva (head master) of the school. He continued in these capacities for eight years, and then sailed for New York where he was appointed rabbi and preacher of Congregation B’nei Jeshurun. He passed away in New York on June 23, 1868.

Credit: Yeshiva University

Photo Credit: Institute For Judaic Culture and History (IFJCAH)

 Credit: Yeshiva University

Photo Caption: A partial list of famous Rabonim and Admorim who guest lectured at RIETS, among them HaRav Boruch Ber Leibowitz, Kaminetzer Rosh Yeshiva, HaRav Aaron Kotler of Kletzk (later of  Lakewood) and Chief Rabbi Avroham Yitzchok HaKoen Kook. Source: The Story of Yeshiva University, Gilbert Klaperman, p. 169

Bio Information:
A number of books have been published on the life and times of the Rav Dov Revel since his passing. Among them, Bernard Revel: Builder of American Jewish orthodoxy, by Rav Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff

Photo Caption: Rav Pinchos Hirschsprung, Credit: Cabadtalk
 
Photo Caption: Rav Yehuda Meir Shapiro, Lubliner Rav and Rosh Yeshia, Chachmei Lublin  , d. 1933

Photo Caption: Yeshiva Chachmei Lublin as it stood when it first opened  in 1930, Credit: Kevarim.com


Photo Caption: Yeshiva Chachmei Lublin as it stands today (Winter, 2011), Credit: Kevarim.com

Bio Information: 
Rav Hirschsprung, a student of Rav Meir Shapiro served as the Chief Rabbi of Montreal from 1969 until his passing. The Lubliner once said that already as a youth he knew 2,200 talmudic folios by heart. The Rav also shared a very close relationship with the Lubavitcher Rebbe and served as one of the Rosh Yeshivas at Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim of Montreal.

Photo Caption: Rav Dovid Leibowitz, Credit: Needed

Photo Caption: Rav Leibowitz along with the Stolin Detroiter Rebbe at the wedding of Rabbi Abba Zalka Gewirtz to the daughter of Rabbi Laibel Kamins, Credit: Moreshes Chachmei America 

Bio Information: 
Reb Dovid Warshawer as he was known in Europe studied in Radin with his great-uncle, the Chofetz Chaim, Slobodka, and eventually the Slabodka Kolel. In 1926, Rav Leibowitz came to the United States and joined Mesivta Torah Vodath, before opening his own yeshiva in 1933.

Source: Rav Breuer, His Life And His Legacy 

Bio Information: 
The Rav was born in 1882 in Papa, Hungary. His father Rav Shlomo Zalman a talmid of the Ksav Sofer was married to Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch, youngest daughter, Sophie. After Rav Hirsch passing in 1888, Rav Shlomo Zalman was selected to replace him as the Moreh Dasrah of the Austrittsgemeinde (secession community) of Orthodox Jews in Frankfurt am Main, known as Khal Adath Jeshurun.
Rav Yosef attended the local yeshiva, Torah Lehranstalt, which his father founded. Upon his fathers passing, in 1926, Rav Yosef was installed as the Rosh Yeshiva of the communal school system.
The Rav immigrated to the United States in 1939 after being arrested by the Gestapo. Once in New York, the Rav took the initiative to start a congregation with the numerous German refugees in Washington Heights, which would closely follow the morale and customs of the Frankfurt community. In addition, he founded Yeshiva Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, a yeshiva elementary school and high school named after his illustrious grandfather. He also founded a teachers’ seminary for girls that would be renamed the Rika Breuer Teachers’ Seminary after his wife’s passing.
Towards the end of his life, the name Levi was added to his own name as a blessing to recover from an illness.
Among the Rav’s philosophical views was the concept of Torah im Derech Eretz which was first introduced in Germany by Rav Hirsch.

Photo Caption: Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Shurkin, Credit: Madison Art LLC

Photo Caption:  Rabbi Shurkin’s son Rabbi Yisroel Meir, Credit: Madison Art LLC

Note:
Reb Irving M. Bunim, the noted askan (community advocate) is buried directly across the road from Rav Shurkin.

In addition to writing many seforim, Rav Fine was the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivas Beth Yehuda which during the 1930’s had an enrolment of more than 30 students.

Rav Illowi was ordained by Rav Moshe Schreiber, the Chasam Sofer and was among the first Rabbanim to serve in the United States. From the time of his arrival on these shores in 1853 until his passing, the Rav spent his time fighting to influence and uphold true Torah values in North America. The Rav is famous for his halachic ruling on the kashrus of Muscovy duck.

Rav Sobel was also the Moreh Dasrah of Mesivta Tiferes Jerusalem prior to the arrival of Rav Moshe Feinstein in the late 1930’s. The Rav had a brother in New York, Rav Shmuel Dovid who authored Migdal Dovid on Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs).

Photo Caption: Rebbe Moshe Teitelbaum of Ujhely, d. 1841, better  known as the Yismach Moshe, Credit:  Needed

Photo Caption: First edition title page, Yetev Lev, authored by Rebbe Yekusiel Yehuda Teitelbaum of  Siget, d. 1883, Credit: IFJCAH


Photo Caption: Rav Tzvi Hirsh Meisels, Credit: N/N

Bio Information:
Prior to becoming Chief Rabbi of Veitzen in 1930, the Rav led the Jewish community of Neimark, Galicia. In Neimark, the Rav headed a yeshiva with hundreds of students. In 1944, the Rav along with his entire community was deported to Auschwitz. After his liberation he was appointed Chief Rabbi of the Bergen-Belsen German/British Section DP Camp where he established Yeshiva Shearis Yisroel. In 1946, upon the encouragement  of his brother-in-law Rebbe Shlomo Halberstam, Bobover Rebbe he settled in Chicago, Illinois.

Photo Caption: Rabbi Yehuda Davis, Credit: Needed