by Elki Rosenfeld - Jewish Press

My brother, Rabbi Yisroel Rosenfeld, a”h, was born in Brooklyn on Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan and passed away on Yud-Daled Shevat, 5768.

Blessed with a keen mind and zitzfleisch (attention span) he excelled in Gemara but also appreciated history and literature.

Rabbi Izzy Rosenfeld OBM: Brother To The World

by Elki Rosenfeld – Jewish Press

My brother, Rabbi Yisroel Rosenfeld, a”h, was born in Brooklyn on Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan and passed away on Yud-Daled Shevat, 5768.

Blessed with a keen mind and zitzfleisch (attention span) he excelled in Gemara but also appreciated history and literature.

In 1950, the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, passed away and 10-year old Yisroel was chosen, among others, to represent Yeshiva Toras Emes at the Levayah. Little did anyone know that this event would foreshadow his entire adult life.

He was sent to Torah Vodaath in Williamsburg, from the sixth grade on, because he outgrew the learning at Torah Emes. Also an 11-year old mischief-maker, he would come home late, because he played on the escalators with a friend on the Canal St. Station.

Because of Yisroel’s Talmudic prowess, several yeshivos tried to recruit him. Beis Yosef-Novardok, a famed Litvish yeshiva uprooted after WW II, now based in Boro Park, “caught” young Yisroel and hoped to establish a mesivta beginning with him. There he studied the typical Lithuanian style of learning. As the only teenager in the yeshiva, the older bachurim considered him their mascot.

Then the turning point of his life: Beis Yosef didn’t offer secular subjects and Yisroel’s mother was adamant that he must receive a high school diploma. So, he went to Lubavitcher Yeshiva late afternoons for secular classes. The rest is history. He was a young boy, from a paragon of Litvishe learning, immersed in Chassidus. It didn’t take long before he switched to Lubavitcher Yeshivah body and soul.

He was a favorite teacher for many years, had tremendous success in chinuch and often invited talmidim to his home in Crown Heights for Shabbos and Yomtov.

The next chapter began when the Rebbe himself, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, personally asked Yisroel to leave chinuch and become director of the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council. Though he missed teaching very much, he thrived in the new position, as the individual to turn to for personal and communal help.

It is worth noting that as District Leader in Crown Heights, he became friends with many African-Americans involved in politics. They would discuss the neighborhood, family and engage in banter. Yisroel felt comfortable in every milieu.

Even after he left the council he continued his role as a private citizen. People rang his bell on Empire Blvd. all hours of the day and night to ask him for assistance. His greatest joy was when he succeeded in his mission on behalf of another Jew.

Yisroel found it extremely painful to walk in his last years. Ever resourceful, he devoted himself to setting up shidduchim, via telephone. He was in his element, connecting to and helping people, utilizing his natural characteristics. In the hospital following surgery, he tried to make a shidduch between his Bukharian doctor and a girl Yisroel knew in that community.

Yisroel was much more than a bio. To me he was my older brother even when I was way past the age of being a little sister. Those roles defined our relationship, growing as we did.

I’m not sure if this is my earliest memory of him, but I can still see and feel the thrill of being given a ride on his “very big” bike. The more my mother cautioned him about my young age, the more exciting the ride was. He was intrepid and invincible – to a three-year-old little sister. Nothing bad could happen if he was “taking” me on a bike ride or other episode.

He initiated me into the ways of kiruv when I was seven. My brother asked me to come with him to what was then called “Release Hour,” where children in public school were granted an hour a week for education in their respective religions. My brother told me that he was going to teach young children that day and thought I would enjoy accompanying him. When he added that those kids would enjoy having a peer “teacher,” it sealed the deal. With my mother yelling in the background, “Watch her. She’s only seven…” off we rode in the car he had borrowed for the occasion. Probably a jalopy, it felt like Cinderella’s coach to me.

I miss you, Yisroel. Your children and grandchildren miss you. The world feels a void.

I know that somehow you found a way to create a makeshift office Above, with papers scattered everywhere, as in your office here and you’re still helping souls.

HaRav Yisroel ben R’ Yitzchok Eizik HaLevi’s neshamah should have an aliyah. Surely he thrives in his role as melitz yosher for Klal Yisroel.

12 Comments

  • Yosef Y. Yunik & Family

    A Book can be written on Reb Yisroels(IZZY) life and klal work.
    He had a very special connection with the Rebbe and the Rebbe gave him lot’s of Kiruvim.
    His special warmth and smile we all really miss. Let him be a Meilitz Yosher on his family and klal Yisroel………….

  • ari

    he truely was a great man may his soul rest in peace and may we all hear only good news from now on,i only have found memoreis of him,he was one of a kind may all try and be like him.he was a man who set an example for the world.

  • Florida

    Elki that was really beautiful. It is amazing over the last two years how many people have told us stories of how he impacted their lives. He helped so many, so often. May his neshama have an aliyah.

  • MYB

    Besides everything else that can be said about his beutiful life, in his zechus, over the last year alone hundreds of thousands of dollars were distributed to Shluchim all over the world, for their basic needs!!!!! Now, THAT is a special zechus!

  • Thank You

    I can thank Izzy, A”H, for my wonderful husband of many years and the wonderful children we have; he made my Shidduch.
    May his family find peace in knowing that his good deeds have flourished into blossoming families!

  • Moshe in Switzerland

    I remember him fondly from Camp Gan Israel in Swan lake in the early 1960’s. One of the warmest people I ever met and a big baal toivo even then.

  • An admirer

    Izzy was a wonderful guy and together with his Aishet Chayil, Marilyn (she should live and be well) they made a wonderful pair. I knew them before they got married and in the first year of my marriage, their home was my home when my husband davened b’arichus. Remember those years when the bochurim did so??!!
    Izzy should be a meilitz yosher to bring Moshiach NOW!!!

  • Reb Shlomo in Boca Raton Florida

    Rabbi Izzy was a nice & jolly person. Trading stories about yeshivoth days in bedford ave and Rabbi Jaffa’s Bais Yosef-Novardok in Boro Park. How his grandmother was one of the few women to wear a sheitel & cholov yisroel milk in their household. Knew about the shuls in brownsville and sad fact of losing them in late 1950’s & 1960’s. Proud and glad to invite one over to house on Empire Blvd. for a l’chaim on a good scotch or bourborn.

  • Leah Friedman Cohen

    I think you were my navi teacher in Cohen h.s. on the early seventies. If that could be true, please reply to the email provided.
    I a, so sorry to hear of your brother’s ptira.