Ynet

Mrs. Rachel Krishevsky OBM (far right). Photo: Ynet.

JERUSALEM, Israel — The commandment to “be fruitful and multiply” the Krishevsky family follows quite closely. Last Saturday, the great grandmother, Rachel Krishevsky passed away at the age of 99, leaving behind no less than 1,400 children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-great-grandchildren.

Woman Dies at 99, Leaves Behind 1,400 Descendents

Ynet

Mrs. Rachel Krishevsky OBM (far right). Photo: Ynet.

JERUSALEM, Israel — The commandment to “be fruitful and multiply” the Krishevsky family follows quite closely. Last Saturday, the great grandmother, Rachel Krishevsky passed away at the age of 99, leaving behind no less than 1,400 children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-great-grandchildren.

Krishevsky got married to her cousin, Yitzhak, just before turning 19. The couple brought seven sons and four daughters into the world. In accordance with haredi custom, Krishevsky brought up her children to see children as a great joy. Her children subsequently adopted her outlook and produced 150 children of their own.

These 150 children continued the commitment to be fruitful and multiply and themselves had no less than 1,000 children. From here, the lineage continued even further, and Rachel Krishevsky was blessed with a few hundred great-great-grandchildren.

Rachel Krishevsky died on Saturday surrounded by loving descendants.

Due to their great numbers, the family is not quite clear on precisely how many descendents there are. “The estimate in the family is that we are about 1,400 people since almost all of those from the family line were blessed with many children,” said one of the grandchildren Wednesday.

Though she lived a full and long life, the family is saddened by Rachel’s passing. Krishevsky lived nearly her whole live next to Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda open-air market.

“Grandma was a God-fearing woman her whole life, and her door was always open to the homeless and poor near the market who were looking for a place to eat,” added the grandchild.

“She knew the entire book of Psalms by heart, and participated in all the family events, happy and sad, up until two years ago. She knew all of her descendents. We are sad about her death, but proud of what she achieved in her life and her righteousness and compassion.”

Though Krishevsky certainly produced many offspring, she did was not a record-breaker. In the haredi sector, there are two well-known cases of living people having great-great-great-grandchildren. One such case is in a Hassidic family living in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Mea Shearim. Another such family is that of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the leader of the Lithuanian branch of haredi Judaism. A few months ago, his great-great-grandson had his first child.

14 Comments

  • godsrighthandman

    boruch dayan emes 7 with all due respect she sometimes had to say Well I’m Sorry I wasn’t at your Simcha~shona tova to all houses of Israel’s faithful~

  • Wowwwed

    Wow. This is what people who don’t want to have children or have children right away don’t realize, that out of you can come out an entire nation. She had so much joy and nachas seeing this blessing full-filled. She must’ve been a great woman.

  • Me

    My father in law had a neighbor in Eretz Yisroel who also passed away at a very old age.. they said about him, that they never saw him in weekday clothing, because there was literally a simcha every day from his family, that he used to go to. May Hashem send down all the neshomos that need to come, so we can have Moshiach come now!

  • Sean

    Whoa! Kol hakavod!

    On a serious note she went a small part of the way in undoing H****’s evil work!!!

  • NYC_Chic

    I am not Jewish. I followed the link of the story from ABC, but I wanted to say this is wonderful. What a great woman and wonderful blessing.

  • Kelly

    There’s a lesson for feminists… Now that’s a woman I can admire…truly heroic, truly wielding the influential power of a woman. I have eight…maybe one day there will be 1400!

  • joe b

    if you wonder how was it possible for 70 men that went down to egypt in the time of joseph and were slaves there for 210 years and emerged aprox. 3 million people.

    if 1 person can produce 1400 then 70 can produce 100,000 in the first 100 years then do 100,000 X 1400 and you get 1.4 billion in 200 years
    thank you Rachel for proving that the torah is emet