and Jewish Life
After the IAJGS conference at the Hilton Hotel, my big walk included the Nozyk, the Old Town, The Bristol Hotel, Polin Museum, Centralna Station area, and back to the Nozyk later in the day.
Around the city
Back to the Nozyk Synagogue
Hotel Bristol
The Old Town
On the way to Polin Museum
Polin Museum
On the way to Centralna Train Station
Nozyk Synagogue before Shabbat
Around Centralna at nightime
Goodbye – back home to Australia
I am pleased to advise that for those of you arriving early in Warsaw for the IAJGS Conference, I will be reciting / singing my barmitzvah Maftir and Haftorah at the Nozyk Synagogue on 28 July 2018 – Shabbat Nachamu.
My barmitzvah was held on 14 August 1965 – 16 Av 5725 at the Waverley Shul, Bramley in Johannesburg, South Africa.
My good friend Phillip Levy’s barmitzvah book – our barmitzvahs were on the same day on 14 August 1965. We didn’t know each other yet!
Books as gifts
This is a significant milestone for our family both historically and genealogically speaking. My zaida, Rev Nachum Mendel Rabinowitz, left Poland in 1905 for Jerusalem, and then in 1911 for South Africa. I have sung in shul choirs in South Africa and Australia since 1960, but this will be the first time since 1905 that the voice of one of our Rabinowitz family will be heard in a shul in Poland! My zaida, my father and my uncle were all cantors.
In 2011 in Orla, I played a recording of my zaida from Johannesburg made in 1961
Video
Nachum Mendel sings in Orla Synagogue, Poland
Source: youtu.be/vvXPavvJPNo
Now in 2018, I return not to play a recording, but to sing in the only synagogue in Warsaw that survived the Holocaust – a return to my roots!
My lecture at IAJGS: Back From the Polish and Litvak Diaspora: Virtual Journeys That Connect Us To Our Roots, is on Thursday 9 August at 4-5pm.
A repeat of my barmitzvah was held in Perth in 1992 – the invitation
Send-off from Noranda CHABAD Thursday 26 July 2018
The last cantor at the Nozyk before the Holocaust
The visit of the Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, the Ponevezh’s Rav to Cape Town in 1953. My zaida – Rev Nachum Mendel Rabinowitz – seated third from the left. Cantor Jakub Lichterman 2nd from the bottom right.
Video
8 August 1993 Cape Town South Africa – edited speech
Source: youtu.be/RGsYvLVsSpc
Full video here (1 hour 19 mins)
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of his barmitzvah at Camps Bay Shul, Cape Town
28 July 2018
 Richard Shavei-Tzion |
Thanks so much Eli for posting the Sefer story. Here’s the continuation: 70 Years after its consecration and 20 years after I first came across and read from it, with HH’s permission I hope to borrow it for a Shabbat. Cheryl and I and our 3 daughters will be spending Shabbat Nachamu, 27-28/7/18 at the Camps Bay Shul, celebrating the 50th anniversary of my Barmitzvah. once again a special connection- the Sefer was installed just weeks after the founding of the State of Israel, now to be used by Jerusalem family with all the significance attached to the number 70 in Jewish tradition. All Blochs-Saevitzons-Sloans-Wienburgs invited to the Brocha after Shabbat morning service. Richard Shavei-Tzion |
Audio
More about Aphraim and Chava and the Bloch & Cynkin Families: Source: kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/mir/Bloch_Cynkin.html The visit to Cape Town from Israel by Beverly Jacobson and her children on …
Source: elirab.me/bloch-torah/
The Cape Town Holocaust Centre
Video
Every year on Yom Hashoah â the Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and Heroism, Holocaust survivors and Jewish communities sing the song Zog Nit Keynmol (âW…
Source: youtu.be/tnaCtuqVBgg
From David Solly Sandler
KEIDAN MEMORIAL (YIZKOR) BOOK
There are three Yizkor books originating in South Africa. Two Yizkor books, Keidan and Rakishok, commemorate Lithuanian towns while the third remembers Chelm in Poland. In my humble opinion the articles, stories and memories in the Keidan and Rakishokbooks, more than any other books I have read, tells us about Jewish life in Lithuania as it approached its destruction.
The Keidan Memorial (Yizkor) Book (see full details below) has now been translated into English. Bella Golubchick translated many of the articles into English and all the translations were reviewed and edited by Aryeh Leonard Shcherbakov and Andrew Cassel of the Keidan Associations of Israel and the US. I compiled and published the book.
This is now the second yizkor book originating in South Africa that has been translated into English. The first was the Rakishok Yizkor book published in September 2017 where I assisted with coordinating the translations for Jewish Gen. the publisher.
For more information or to obtain a book please contact
David Solly Sandler. sedsand@iinet.net.au
Keidan Memorial (Yizkor) Book
The Keidan Memorial (Yizkor) Book, was first compiled in 1977 mainly in Hebrew by the Keidan Associations and Keidaners living in Israel, The US and South Africa to commemorate the 500 years of Jewish life in Keidan that was abruptly ended in July 1941 by the Germans helped enthusiastically by the local Lithuanians.
The book offers a multi-faceted historical view of Jewish life in Keidan – its 500-year history, its religious, educational, social and cultural institutions, youth organizations, portraits of its prominent people, memoirs of witnesses and survivors, the stories of exiles and wars and the Holocaust.
The publication of this Memorial Book in 1977 was the most important contribution of the Keinaner Associations to future generations of Keidaners. Originally released mostly in Hebrew (with smaller Yiddish and English sections), it has now been fully translated into English.
At first glance this book is like all the other hundreds of books published since the end of World War II in memory of the Jewish shtetl in Eastern Europe that had been and is no more. Keidan itself was one of those thousands of towns in the old Pale. Small towns with all their lights and shadows, their geographical and human landscape, their spiritual climate, the Jewish people who worked and toiled all week like busy ants in order to bring food to the family. With its odd and strange figures, whose daily life and golden dreams of the redemption of the nation and salvation of the world. In short, a shtetl, like all shtetlech.
The birth pangs of this book were hard and prolonged. Yet it is natural, and it doesn’t lessen its importance, if we shall consider that the whole book is a product of the common effort of the town’s people who invested in it the most important element – love. Actually, no scientific research works have been included in this book, but memories which sometimes reach the height of true art, and – what is even more important – they distinguish themselves with a clean and refined truth, as it was seen with the eyes of the writers. They described all they had seen in a quiet, restrained way, without any trimmings, yet, for all that these memories speak to the reader with an unusual strength of expression.
One of the main goals of the book is the commemoration of the period of the Holocaust. Very few people have remained from that terrible period. Very few of those who had seen the terror from close up saved themselves by a miracle, and it is their duty to tell about their personal experiences. There are others who succeeded to escape from the Holocaust and to spend the war in wanderings in distant places or in fighting the cruel enemy. Each one told, in his own language, the facts as he knew them. More than once the book contains different versions of the same events. This fact, which can happen in historical scientific works too, will no doubt be forgiven in a book which was written not by historians, but by men who drew their descriptions not from documents in an ivory tower of a library, but from their own memories, that were tortured in the ghettos, concentration camps and forests. This is however the naked truth, rough and not polished, a truth solid like rock from which eternal monuments are shaped.
Still, this book is more than an eternal monument. It is an effort to return to the shtetl in its happy moments as well as in its last hours, to be together with the father and the mother, with the brothers and sisters, at the Shabbat table as well as at the mass grave on the fateful day, to isolate oneself within Keidan, one of the precious stones in the lost crown whose name was Eastern European Jewry.
There is no relief in this book for the wounded soul of a son of Keidan, but there is in it a eulogy and a kaddish which was not said on the grave of the martyrs, and which will be said now whenever we shall take this book in our hands.
For more information or to obtain a book please contact
David Solly Sandler. sedsand@iinet.net.au
Keidan Memorial (Yizkor) Book – the cover
Another excellent tour of Polin with Michael Leiserowitz
Michael is an official Hebrew and German speaking guide at the Museum. Come join us for some highlights. The previous visits are at the end of this post.
Video – Michael
Video – Michael
The Entrance from the bridge
Back View
Video – Michael
With Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Director of the Core Exhibit, in Melbourne in November 16.
They Call Me Mayer July – her book in the background – drawings by her dad
The famous dialogue of Shlomo Luria and Moshe Isserles
My Katzenellenbogen rabbinic roots
My pink VISA card is back! – an in-joke!
Waiting for the train!
Model of the Great Synagogue of Warsaw
Video – Michael
Alexander Harkavy
Video – Michael
Alexander Harkavy Novogrudok
Source: youtu.be/5n-zEPkNCJE
Kid’s games 
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_the_Ghetto_Heroes
A brilliant tour of Polin with my host Michael Leiserowitz, official guide. POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews – Wikipedia POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews (Polish: Muzeum H…
Source: elirab.me/warsaw-day-2/
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
Source: elirab.me/warsaw-poland/
May 2015 Polin Museum. I have visited the museum twice before in 2013 and 2014, but this is the first time since it officia…
Source: elirab.me/polin-museum-warsaw-poland/
Day One
The Warsaw Old Town (Polish: Stare Miasto and collectively with the New Town, known colloquially as: Starówka) is the oldest part of Warsaw, the capital city of Poland. It is bounded by the Wybrzeże Gdańskie, along with the bank of Vistula river, Grodzka, Mostowa and Podwale Streets. It is one of the most prominent tourist attractions in Warsaw. The heart of the area is the Old Town Market Place, rich in restaurants, cafés and shops. Surrounding streets feature medieval architecture such as the city walls, the Barbican and St. John’s Cathedral.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Old_Town
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Uprising
Warsaw Uprising Monument
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Polish: Grób Nieznanego Żołnierza) is a monument in Warsaw, Poland, dedicated to the unknown soldiers who have given their lives for Poland. It is one of many such national tombs of unknowns that were erected after World War I, and the most important such monument in Poland.[1]
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_the_Unknown_Soldier_(Warsaw)
Video
Adam Mickiewicz Monument (Polish: Pomnik Adama Mickiewicza) is a monument dedicated to Adam Mickiewicz at the Krakowskie Przedmieście in the Śródmieście district of Warsaw, Poland. The Neo-Classicist monument was constructed in 1897–1898 by sculptor Cyprian Godebski.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Mickiewicz_Monument,_Warsaw
Day Two
The Jewish Historical Institute (Polish: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny or ŻIH) also known as the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, is a research foundation in Warsaw, Poland, primarily dealing with the history of Jews in Poland.
With Michael Leiserowitz
Polin – post to follow
Nozyk Synagogue – post to follow
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Culture_and_Science
Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit[1] (22 July 1878 or 1879 – 7 August 1942[2]), was a Polish-Jewish educator, children’s author, and pedagogue known as Pan Doktor (“Mr. Doctor”) or Stary Doktor (“Old Doctor”). After spending many years working as director of an orphanage in Warsaw, he refused sanctuary repeatedly and stayed with his orphans when the entire population of the institution was sent from the Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp, during the Grossaktion Warsaw of 1942.[3]
With Michael and Ruth Leiserowitz
July 2018
After the torah reading on shabbat, we recite Av Harachamim
Av Harachamim or Abh Haraḥamim (אב הרחמים “Father [of] mercy” or “Merciful Father”) is a Jewish memorial prayer which was written in the late eleventh or early twelfth century, after the destruction of the Ashkenazi communities around the Rhine River by Christian crusaders during the First Crusade.[1] First appearing in prayer books in 1290, it is printed in every Orthodox siddur in the European traditions of Nusach Sefarad and Nusach Ashkenaz and recited as part of the weekly Shabbat services, or in some communities on the Shabbat before Shavuot and Tisha B’Av.[2][3]
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArtScroll
Tehillat Hashem (תְּהִלַּת ה’, “praise of God” in Hebrew) is the name of a prayer-book (known as a siddur in Hebrew) used for Jewish services in synagogues and privately by Hasidic Jews, specifically in the Chabad-Lubavitch community. The name of the siddur is taken from Psalm 145, verse 21, “Praise of God shall my mouth speak, and all flesh shall bless His holy Name forever and ever.”
A noteworthy custom fitting the mood of the Sefira period deals with the prayer Av Harachamim. Av Harachamim, recited on Shabbat after the Torah reading was written in response to the Crusades. In it we memorialize the righteous martyrs and pray for retribution for their spilled blood. Av Harachamim is generally not recited on Shabbatot which have an added celebratory nature – such as Shabbat Mevarchim (the Shabbat in which we bless the new month). In many congregations during the Shabbatot of Sefirat Haomer, Av Harachamim is recited even on the Shabbatot in which we bless Iyar and Sivan. The Mishna Brura (284,18) adds, that even if there is a Brit Milah that Shabbat, giving us a second reason why Av Harachamim should not be recited, Av Harachamim is still said, since this was the season of the tragedies.
Before reading the Av Harachamim prayer, we select one of the 6500 shtetls that existed before and during the Holocaust from this three volume set:
We then share the story of the particular shtetl to illustrate what we lost in Holocaust!
This week – Plunge / Plungyan
The encyclopedia of Jewish life before and during the Holocaust / editor in chief, Shmuel Spector ; consulting editor, Geoffrey Wigoder ; foreword by Elie Wiesel – Collections Search – United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Source: collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/bib63061
With thanks to Rabbi Marcus Solomon of Dianella Mizrachi Shule for sharing this idea with me.
Thanks to Michelle Urban and the Western Australian JHGS for allowing me to use these books from their excellent library housed at Noranda CHABAD.
For more on Plunge visit the KehilaLink:
Source: kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/plunge
Plunge, Lithuania
Source: kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/plunge/Home.html
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Harwood
Sea Point High School, formerly Sea Point Boys High School, is a co-educational public high school in Main Road, Sea Point, Cape Town, South Africa. The school was established on 21 April 1884. In 1925, the senior grades were separated from the junior grades. In 1989, the school merged with Ellerslie Girls’ High School after becoming co-educational.
Sea Point Boys connected to Plunyan
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Point_High_School
Designed by the same Finnish company which designed the award-winning POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, the state-of-the-art museum, located in Šeduva – 175km north-west of Vilnius – will open in 2020.
The museum complex will include a sprawling Jewish cemetery, which was completely restored and opened in 2015, monuments at three separate sites of Holocaust mass executions and burials, and a symbolic sculpture in the middle of the town.
“It will tell the story of the life of what was once the largest European Litvak Jewish population living in shtetls,” according to the museum’s website. “Lifestyle, customs, religion and the social, professional and family life of the Jews of Šeduva will serve as the centrepiece of the museum exhibition.
“Museum visitors will be taught the tragedy of Šeduva’s Jewish history, which ended in three pits near the shtetl in the early days of World War II, concluding five centuries of the history of the Jews of Šeduva.”
Ex-South African educator Eli Rabinowitz, who now lives in Perth, attended the ceremony and spoke on behalf of the Litvak Diaspora, especially South African Jews. “Many Litvaks migrated to South Africa, aptly named the ‘goldene medina’,” he said. “Jewish life in the small South African country towns often mirrored that of the Litvak shtetl. We often heard stories from ‘der heim’, describing the rich Jewish cultural life throughout Lithuania, which had existed over many centuries.
“Those Litvaks who left Lithuania before the Holocaust were indeed lucky. More than 95% of the Lithuanian Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, a greater percentage than any other country,” said Rabinowitz.
“In the future, when we visit this museum, we will be able to access the past with a better understanding of history. We will view the collection of objects and artifacts, giving us insight into how our ancestors lived their cultural, religious, work and home lives. We will learn about their values from their daily lives and from the items they kept and used.
“The museum will showcase the richness and the importance of Litvak shtetl life of years gone by. It will also reflect on the Jewish world that was destroyed by the Holocaust.
“The museum will educate Lithuanians and visitors to Lithuania, and so provide an opportunity to learn from our history and strive for a better world.”
Rabinowitz said he thinks the museum is being built now – before, as politicians and historians have realised, this past is lost to history.
He emphasises that the location is important, as “our Litvak heritage stems from the shtetls in this geographical region in Lithuania – not the bigger cities of Vilnius or Kaunas”.
Lithuania’s President Dalia Grybauskaitė said the laying of the cornerstone “heralds the reconstruction of an important part of Lithuanian history, closely interlinked with the history of Lithuania’s large Jewish community and its tragic fate”.
She added: “The Lost Shtetl Museum will bring back from oblivion the names and faces of many families, friends and neighbours, as well as their customs and traditions.”
Said Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius: “This unique museum will capture not only the memory of the Šeduva but also the Jewish communities of Lithuania as a whole.”
Source: www.sajr.co.za/news-and-articles/2018/07/05/building-of-lost-shtetl-museum-begins-in-lithuania
The Jewish member of the Seimas, the Lithuanian Parliament
Emanuelis Zingeris (born 16 July 1957 in Kaunas, Lithuania) is a Lithuanian philologist, museum director, politician, signatory of the 1990 Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania, currently serving as a Member of the Seimas (1990–2000 and since 2004), chairman of its foreign affairs committee (since 2010), Vice President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (since 2009) and President of the Parliamentary Forum of the Community of Democracies (since 2010).[1] A Lithuanian Jew, he has been director of the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum, honorary chairman of Lithuania’s Jewish community, and is Chairman of the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania. He is a founding signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, that proposed the establishment of the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuelis_Zingeris
Emanuelis Zingeris MP talks about Avraham Mapu
Source: youtu.be/r_TGbEO9lsQ
The Choral Synagogue
From my 2017 visit:
The restoration of the Geliu synagogue Renovation of Synagogue on Geliu Gatve starts in Vilnius The Lithuanian Department of Cultural Heritage confirmed on July 21, 2015, the renovation of the syna…
Source: elirab.me/back-to-vilnius/
The Jewish cemeteries of Vinius are the three Jewish cemeteries of the Lithuanian Jews living in what is today Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, which was known to them for centuries as Vilna, the principal city of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire. Two of the cemeteries were destroyed by the Soviet regime and the third is still active.
Noranda CHABAD, Perth, Western Australia, 30 June 2018
Avraham Shalom Halberstam spends Shabbat Balak with us. I had discovered on his previous visit to Perth in July 2016 that we were 8th cousins. Researching using Geni.com, I discovered that we both are members of the Katzenellenbogen Rabbinic Family Tree.
Earlier the day on Shabbat, we did something during Shacharit that brought the Rebbe and our community together as never before – read below.
Please note: no photos were taken during shabbat!
My 8th Cousin – The Stropkover Rebbe – The Admor of Stropkov
Video
Mendy of RARA and the Stropkover Rebbe. Other guests were Moishe, the Rebbe’s assistant, and Moishe from RARA
Source: youtu.be/wzTfMchMCCs
13 July 2018
Earlier after the torah reading on shabbat we recited Av Harachamim
A noteworthy custom fitting the mood of the Sefira period deals with the prayer Av Harachamim. Av Harachamim, recited on Shabbat after the Torah reading was written in response to the Crusades. In it we memorialize the righteous martyrs and pray for retribution for their spilled blood. Av Harachamim is generally not recited on Shabbatot which have an added celebratory nature – such as Shabbat Mevarchim (the Shabbat in which we bless the new month). In many congregations during the Shabbatot of Sefirat Haomer, Av Harachamim is recited even on the Shabbatot in which we bless Iyar and Sivan. The Mishna Brura (284,18) adds, that even if there is a Brit Milah that Shabbat, giving us a second reason why Av Harachamim should not be recited, Av Harachamim is still said, since this was the season of the tragedies.
A few weeks ago, Rabbi Marcus Solomon of Dianella Mizrachi Shule, told me about an initiative he had started in his shul.
Before reading the Av Harachamim prayer, he selects one of the 6500 shtetls that existed before and during the Holocaust from this three volume set:
Rabbi Solomon then shares the story of the particular shtetl to illustrate what we lost in Holocaust!
Today was the first time we did the same at Noranda CHABAD Shul during Shacharit.
With the Stropkover Rebbe spending Shabbat with us, I chose the following shtetl from Volume 3:
Thanks to Michelle Urban and the JHGS for allowing me to use these books from their excellent library housed at CHABAD.
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/bib63061
It goes without saying that those in shul were inspired to hear about Stropkov with its Rebbe in our shul. The further connection as 8th cousins was an added bonus for us!
We discussed the Rebbe’s previous visits to Perth and at his request, last night I found this clip I filmed of the Rebbe at Benny Sasson’s barmitzvah June 2000. We did not know our connection then, and here 8 years later, I am pleased to be able to upload it to the internet for all to view and share!
At Benny Sasson’s barmitzvah
Source: youtu.be/nn1M-SVGTHk
The Stropkover Rebbe has just completed a visit to Perth Australia from Jerusalem.
We were honoured to have him spend Shabbat with us at the CHABAD shul in Noranda WA.
He has visited Perth before.
I took the opportunity on Saturday night to learn more about him and his town.
The Rebbe was born in Germany and lives in Jerusalem. The Stropkover Rebbe’s “once upon a time” community was based in Stropkov in Slovakia.
| Stropkov | ||
| Town | ||
 View of Stropkov
|
||
|
||
| Country | Slovakia | |
|---|---|---|
| Region | Prešov | |
| District | Stropkov | |
| River | Ondava | |
| Elevation | 202 m (663 ft) | |
| Coordinates | 49°12′18″N 21°39′05″ECoordinates: 49°12′18″N 21°39′05″E | |
| Area | 24.667 km2 (9.524 sq mi) | |
| Population | 10,866 (2012-12-31) | |
| Density | 441 / km2 (1,142 / sq mi) | |
| First mentioned | 1404 | |
Stropkov (Slovak pronunciation: [ˈstropkow]; Hungarian: Sztropkó, pronounced [ˈstropkoː], Yiddish: סטראפקאוו) is a town in Stropkov District, Prešov Region, Slovakia.
Jews first arrived in Stropkov, possibly fleeing Polish pogroms, in about 1650. About fifty years later, the Jews were exiled from Stropkov to Tisinec, a village just to the north. They did not return to Stropkov until about 1800. The Stropkov Jewish cemetery was dedicated in 1892, after which the Tisinec cemetery fell into disuse.
In 1939 the antisemitic Hlinka Party gain control of the Stropkov Town Council. From May–October 1942 the Hlinka deported Jews from the Stropkov area to Auschwitz, Sobibor, Maidanek, and “unknown destinations”. By the end of World War II, only 100 Jews remained in Stropkov out of 2000 in 1942.
The first rabbi of Tisinec and Stropkov was Rabbi Moshe Schonfeld. He left Stropkov for a position in Vranov. He was succeeded in 1833 by Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Teitelbaum (I)(1818–1883) who served as Stropkov’s chief rabbi until leaving for a post in Ujhely. The next incumbent was Rabbi Chaim Yosef Gottlieb (1790–1867), known as the “Stropkover Rov”. He was succeeded by Rabbi Yechezkel Shraga Halberstam (1811–1899), a son of Rabbi Chaim Halberstam of Sanz. His scholarship, piety, and personal charisma transformed Stropkov into one of the most respected chasidic centers in all Galicia and Hungary. Rabbi Moshe Yosef Teitelbaum (1842–1897), the son of the aforementioned Rabbi Yekusiel Yehuda Teitelbaum, was appointed as Stropkov’s next chief rabbi in 1880.
The charismatic and scholarly Rabbi Yitzhak Hersh Amsel (c1855–1934), the son of Peretz Amsel of Stropkov, was first appointed as a dayan in Stropkov and then as the rabbi of Zborov (near Bardejov). As legend has it, Rabbi Yitzhak Hersh Amsel died while praying in his Zborov synagogue. He is buried in the Stropkov cemetery where a small protective building ohel was erected over his grave to preserve it. Rabbi Amsel was succeeded in 1897 by Rabbi Avraham Shalom Halberstam (1856–1940). Jews, learned and simple alike, sought the advice and blessing of this “miracle rabbi of Stropkov”, revered as a living link in the chain of Chassidus of Sanz and Sienawa. Rabbi Halberstam served in Stropkov for some forty years, until the early 1930s, when he assumed a rabbinical post in the larger town of Košice. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Halberstam (1873–1954),the son of the aforementioned Rabbi Avraham Shalom Halberstam was then appointed chief rabbi of Stropkov and head of the Talmud Torah. After World War II Rabbi Menachem Mendel Halberstam lived in New York until the end of his life, teaching at the Stropkover Yeshiva, which he founded in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
The present day Admor of Stropkov is HaRav Avraham Shalom Halberstam of Jerusalem. The Admor runs several yeshivas and kolelim in Jerusalem and other cities in Israel. The Admor dedicates himself to Ahavat Yisrael and to helping many who need to return to their Jewish roots.
I then went into my Geni account and looked up the Stropkover Rebbe and found what appeared to be his family line.
I recalled that on Shabbat, he had been called up to the torah as HaRav Avraham Shalom ben Yechezkel Shrage.
Havdalah after Shabbat.
On Sunday I printed out this page on Geni and showed it to the Rebbe who confirmed that this was indeed him – i.e. Avraham Shalom Lipschutz (Halberstam). He also confirmed that his mother was Beila, daughter of Avraham Shalom Halberstam.
I also printed out the Geni page which shows our relationship and presented a copy to the Rebbe.
So, besides all the friends he has Downunder, he now is happy to have added a 8th cousin in this isolated Jewish community!
We are both members of the Katzenellenbogen Rabbinic Tree.
Shabbat Balak
There is an old saying that what makes G‑d laugh is seeing our plans for the future.However, if Tanakh is our guide, what makes G‑d laugh is human delusions of grandeur. From the vantage point of heaven, the ultimate absurdity is when humans start thinking of themselves as G‑dlike.
Source: mailchi.mp/af9131e6afbc/life-without-bumps-3300829?e=678b339d93
Yiddish May 2018
