יום שישי י"ט באדר ב תשפ"ד 29/03/2024
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  • The Mission Continues

    As in the past so it remains today - we were and still are under the selfsame commitment to adhere to the directions of the Gedolei Yisrael, who stand guard against breaches of purity threatening our camp. When we were required to ask – we asked. When we were instructed to depart – we left. The moment we are summoned back to raise the flag, every other consideration is pushed to the side and we answer: We are ready!

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בראי היום

  • Harav Yisrael Friedman zy”a, the Rebbe of Husyatin

    מוטי, ויקיפדיה העברית

    The ancestral chain of Harav Yisrael Friedman, the founder of the Husyatin chassidic court, originates with the holy Baal Shem Tov. The Husyatin chassidus has its roots in Galicia and eventually came to Tel Aviv, during the turbulent years between the two World Wars.

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  • Maccabi'im Gravesite

    In honour of Chanukah, we will discuss a fascinating, ongoing investigation attempting to establish the place of burial of Mattisyahu Kohen Gadol and his family.

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Reflections

The community of Volozhin

The Jewish community of Volozhin was neither ancient nor even especially large; its claim to greatness was solely in the merit of the location within it of the ‘Mother of the Yeshivos’, and by virtue of the many gedolei Yisroel who served there as rav.

Motty Meringer 17/05/2009 14:00

The city of Volozhin is situated between Minsk and Vilna and was founded at the beginning of the fifteenth century ce by Count Tishkevitz. Volozhin was originally established as the private residence of the Count, but over the years ownership passed to other nobles, although the town retained its private status until the twentieth century ce. According to the estimation of historians, the first Jews in Volozhin arrived there towards the end of the sixteenth century ce. In the year 5526 the Jewish community numbered 383 souls; some one hundred and thirty years later in the year 5653 the total population of the town had increased to 2446 members of whom 1900 were Jewish. The Jews made a living by leasing land from the local poritz; from the end of the eighteenth century ce they also had the option of working in a local cloth factory that was owned by a Jew, Rav Yitzchok, who was the father of Rav Chaim Volozhiner.

Rav Yitzchok’s family was one of the original Jewish families in Volozhin, and there are those who maintain that they were in fact the first family to settle there. Rav Yitzchok served as the head of the community, and according to his son Rav Chaim he was beloved by all, easing the heavy tax burden on those who could not afford it. Rav Chaim even related that every community leader who used the position to serve HaShem, rather than for self-aggrandisement, merited to have a son who was a true talmid chacham - the proof of which was evidenced in Rav Chaim himself.

In the year 5510 the Gaon Rav Aryeh Leib Gintzburg was appointed as rav of Volozhin – he is better known as the ‘Sha’agas Aryeh’, who had until then been rav in Minsk. In those days, there were few homes in which a complete Shas could be found; Rav Chaim’s father Rav Yitzchok was a wealthy man and could afford the luxury of an entire Shas for his personal use and this fact was well-known in the surrounding area, and many scholars would frequent his home in order to avail themselves of his library. Tradition relates that the Sha’agas Aryeh too would engage in this practice; each time he needed a particular volume he would come to Rav Yitzchok’s home and request it. Rav Yitzchok’s wife, who had the greatest respect for the Torah and those who devoted themselves to it, suggested that she could bring the rav the sefer needed, so that his precious time would not be wasted. In response the Sha’agas Aryeh blessed her for her deeds, and the fruits of the blessing were Rav Chaim and Rav Shlomo Zalman, who was known as Rav Zalmele.

Five years after the Sha’agas Aryeh arrived in Volozhin he was forced to leave the town, since the town’s poor inhabitants were no longer able to support him and his family, so that he was scarcely able to buy even bread with his meager wages. An additional reason leading to his departure was his desire to publish his sefer, which was only possible in Frankfurt, Germany, and therefore he left for Frankfurt. Later, in the year 5523, Rav Aryeh Leib returned to Volozhin for one year, during which Rav Chaim Volozhiner learned from him.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century ce the ownership of the town of Volozhin passed into the hands of Count Josef Tishkevitz. It was during these years that Rav Chaim, who was then the town’s rav, was occupied with the establishment of the yeshiva, ‘Eitz Chaim – Volozhin’, which became known as the ‘Mother of the Yeshivos’. Count Tishkevitz held Rav Chaim in the greatest esteem and furnished him with much assistance with the building process; there are even those who claim that Rav Chaim’s own house was built for him by the Count. It is also related that Rav Chaim would visit the Count in his abode, when the Count would read to him of the latest developments in the world from newspapers, to which Rav Chaim would add his own interpretations. On one of these occasions when Rav Chaim was sitting with the Count, the Count related that a son and heir had been born to the Russian Czar Pavel, and that the boy had been named Nikolai. Upon hearing this, Rav Chaim burst out in weeping, and when the Count demanded to know the cause of his tears, Rav Chaim replied that the Jews had a tradition that every foreign ruler whose name began with the letter ‘nun’ acted with especial harshness towards the Jews. Thus had been Nimrod, Nevuchadnezzar, Nevuzaradan, the Roman Emperor Nero, and therefore he feared that Nikolai, when he would become Czar, would also follow in their footsteps (as in fact proved to be the case).

The friendly relationship between Rav Chaim and the Count extended also to the next generation, with a strong connection between Rav Chaim’s son Rav Itzele and the son of the Count, Mikhail Tishkevitz.

The ‘Eitz Chaim’ yeshiva founded by Rav Chaim attracted many students from all over Europe, the sheer numbers of them making the custom of eating ‘teg’ no longer possible to implement. (The custom of ‘teg’ was the usual practice for yeshiva bochurim living away from home, who would eat their main (and oftentimes only) meal each day by a different local family). Therefore, Rav Chaim sent emissaries to the Jews of western Europe, requesting assistance for the Volozhiner students. With the monies raised, the yeshiva’s administration rented rooms from the local Jewish residents, who now benefited both spiritually and financially from the yeshiva’s presence in their midst.

In the year 5581, Rav Chaim Volozhiner was niftar and his son Rav Itzele was appointed in his place as Rosh Yeshiva. The Dayan Rav Shimshon Radonski, who was greatly beloved by the local Jewish populace, served together with him at the head of the Volozhin kehilla. In the year 5609, Rav Itzele was niftar and his son-in-law Rav Eliezer Yitzchok of Horodna filled his place as rav of the town and as Rosh Yeshiva. However, Rav Eliezer Yitzchok was a weak and sickly man, and he found it too demanding of him to manage the dual roles he had inherited. Therefore, he assigned the bulk of his duties as rav and dayan to Rav Shimshon Radonski. In the year 5613, Rav Eliezer Yitzchok was niftar at the young age of forty-four, and his brother-in-law, the other son-in-law of Rav Itzele, became rav of Volozhin and Rosh Yeshiva; this was Rav Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, known as the Netziv.

In the year 5652, a year before the petira of the Netziv, the Russian government ordered the closure of the yeshiva, after the yeshiva’s administration had consistently refused to permit the introduction of secular studies into the yeshiva’s curriculum. The closure of the yeshiva was a heavy blow to the Jews of Volozhin, from both a spiritual and a financial standpoint. Three years later in the year 5655, Rav Meir Noach Levin was appointed as rav of the town, and with his appointment the yeshiva building, which had been padlocked by government officials, once again opened its portals, but only for use as a synagogue, not as a yeshiva. A short while later Rav Meir Noach was appointed as the maggid of Vilna and he left Volozhin. In his place Rav Refoel Shapira became rav, who was a son-in-law of the Netziv. Rav Refoel Shapira re-established the yeshiva itself, and it once again attracted talmidim from all over Europe; however, the town never regained its former glory and the yeshiva struggled to survive. During the First World War Rav Refoel Shapira was niftar and his son Rav Yaakov took over his place at the helm of the yeshiva. A short while before the outbreak of the Second World War Rav, Yaakov Shapira was niftar and his sons Rav Yitzchok Moshe and Rav Zalman Yosef, together with his son-in-law Rav Chaim Valkin, Hy’d, took over the positions of rav and Roshei Yeshiva.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, the sixty-four talmidim of the yeshiva escaped to Vilna, where they learned with great devotion despite the great fear hanging over their heads. Eventually, these last Volozhiner talmidim were murdered in Vilna by the accursed Nazis y’sh.

The remaining Jews of Volozhin were sent to the extermination camps in the course of two aktzias carried out by the Nazis. During the first aktzia only a small number of Jews were taken; on the 23rd of Iyar in the year 5702, the Nazi devil completed its satanic work of slaughter and wiped out the last remaining members of the once-glorious Jewish community of Volozhin, may HaShem avenge their blood.