Rabbi Aryeh Leib Gutel
אריה ליב ב"ר אברהם משה
Rav, Lake Placid, New YorkDate of Death:
Tue. February 8, 1944 -
Shevat 14 5704
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Directions to Kever: Beth Hamedrash Hagadol-Beth Jacob Cemetery is located in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania. Mckees Rocks is located 15 minutes from Pittsburgh, just across the Ohio River, Location: Needed
Name Listed on Cemetery Database: Name listed on marker: Rabbi Leopold Gutel
Biographical Notes:
Source: Lewiston Daily Sun
Credit: Rich Boyer, Pittsburgh, PA
Credit: Rich Boyer, Pittsburgh, PA
Credit: Rich Boyer, Pittsburgh, PA
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In 1929 he had a classified in The Jewish Criterion of Pittsburgh that read:
“Rabbi A. Gutel, Orthodox Rabbi desires to conduct holiday services or permenant place, is willing to teach Hebrew lessons; is also Schochet, 5620 Wilkins Ave.”
Probably that was the year when he arrived to the US, after that in 1936 we find in the same newspaper that he was one of the Rabbis of Uniontwon PA who spoke at a ceremony honoring the memory of Dr. Nuchum Sokolov (by then he already went by the name Leopold).
At the end of his short life he accepted the position of Rabbi on Lake Placid NY in Rensselaer County – Upstate NY and surrounding areas where he passed away.
Here is a note of his death in The Troy Record Feb. 11 1944:
http://www.newspaperarchive.com/SiteMap/FreePdfPreview.aspx?img=10910584
I guess his family lived in the Pittsburgh area and that his why he was brought there for burial.
Here is what the note reads:
UPSTATE RABBI DEES.
Rabbi Leopold Gutel of Lake
Placid who has been spiritual leader
of the Jewish community ol
Saranac Lake, Lake Placid and
Tupper Lake and chaplain of the
Sunmount Veterans’ Hospital, died
Tuesday at the Lake Placid General
Hoeptal. He was 40 [42] years old
I think this is my uncle He is the son of Rabbi Avraham Gutel from Germany
This is my grandmother’s brother Leo. My grandmother Irma Freeman (maiden name Miriam Deborah Gutel) spoke fondly of my grand uncle Leo and she said he spoke out against the Nazis and he she thought he was run-off of the road and killed by Nazis in upstate NY.
My grandma – Irma Gutel told me that her brother Leo was a rabbi in upstate NY and that he was killed by what they thought was a car bomb planted by local Nazis in the area who were opposed to his speaking out against them.
Is that story real?
No mention of it in the news reports of his passing.
http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn86033359/1944-01-14/ed-1/seq-5
http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn86033359/1944-02-11/ed-1/seq-4/
Please delete my last entry (11/19) for this correction.
Thank you for the historic NY newspaper link. The newspaper allowed me to find out that car crash was indeed an accident as the following article details. Rabbi Leopold Gutel never fully recovered from injuries succumbed by the car accident when he died 2/8/44.
http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn86033359/1943-10-01/ed-1/seq-1/