BROOKLYN, NY — Rabbi Tzvi Yosef Kotlarsky, a Polish-born Chasid who escaped war-torn Europe via Japan and China to ultimately participating in the building of the Chabad-Lubavitch school systems in Montreal and Brooklyn, N.Y., passed away Monday at the age of 91. Known by his Yiddish name Hirschel, the rabbi served as chief administrator of the United Lubavitch Yeshiva in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights section for decades.
Emigre Spearheaded Jewish Education in North America
BROOKLYN, NY — Rabbi Tzvi Yosef Kotlarsky, a Polish-born Chasid who escaped war-torn Europe via Japan and China to ultimately participating in the building of the Chabad-Lubavitch school systems in Montreal and Brooklyn, N.Y., passed away Monday at the age of 91. Known by his Yiddish name Hirschel, the rabbi served as chief administrator of the United Lubavitch Yeshiva in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights section for decades.
Rabbi Tzvi Yosef Kotlarsky, a Polish-born Chasid who escaped war-torn Europe via Japan and China to ultimately participating in the building of the Chabad-Lubavitch school systems in Montreal and Brooklyn, N.Y., passed away Monday at the age of 91. Known by his Yiddish name Hirschel, the rabbi served as chief administrator of the United Lubavitch Yeshiva in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights section for decades.
The young Hirschel first learned in the local grade school before traveling to Warsaw to study in the Tomchei Tmimim Lubavitch yeshiva there. By the time he was 14, he returned home to immerse himself in Jewish texts with his brother.
“I decided with my brother that within a year, we would complete the entire Talmud,” Kotlarsky related in 2006. “We got up at four in the morning and we learned.”
He later enrolled in the Chochmei Lublin Yeshiva headed by Rabbi Meir Shapiro, a scholar Kotlarsky remembered as giving “brilliant lectures.” On the advice of the Kotsker Rebbe, Kotlarsky continued his studies at the Lubavitch yeshiva in Otwock, some 25 kilometers from Warsaw. Out of 180 boys who registered at the school that year, only Kotlarsky and seven others were accepted to the respected academy.
“Thank G-d I was selected as one of them,” he said. “If you came in at 2:00 at night, at times, you couldn’t find a place to sit. I remember, I had a set time to learn with a study partner at 4:00 in the morning. We used to get up, go in the woods, sit down there and learn.”
anon
Ovad Chosid Min Ho’Oretz
A loving granddaughter - Ada Cunin
Thank you so much for such a beautiful, comprehensive article on my grandfather. There are no words to express the void I feel for not having Zaidy around.
Last year I had the privilege of staying with him during the Kinus Hashluchos. Unfortunately it was one of the weaker weeks he lived through over the past year. However, his LOVE for Torah, Learning, and doing his daily Shiur would NOT GO undone!!
There is one point (out of “millions”) I would like to share and bring out.
Friday night, he wouldn’t get up from his chair without being maavir sedra! But it had to be, shnayim mikra v’echad targum! When I offered to do it for him, I got the Twinkled Eye laugh!
I feel this is a lesson he was teaching all of us, leading by example, through love, with no harsh words and no telling what to do, as stated above, “even through excruciating pain”, he knew his example would be the way to teach his lesson.
Zaidy, we miss you, we miss the twinkle in your eye, your lit up face, we miss the seeing you in your yellow chair with a Rambam in your hand, we miss visiting and bringing home lollies for the “ureineklach”,
I’m not sure how I am going to get through tomorrow without making my erev shabbos call. True it’s been a couple of weeks, but this time I am begging Hashem, send MOSHIACH TODAY, so I am not faced with the finality of never dialing your phone number again.
Zaidy we love you!
May zaidy be a gutte bette far unz ale, and may our family continue his legacy with much nachas, health, besuros tovois, and Moshiach Now.
PS Thank you for giving me this opportunity to share some of my feelings.
john
bless u loving granddaughter much thanks for your point may we all become more anshei maaseh and less of talkers
Relative
Ada, we are all with you in the pain and loss, may we merit to see Zaidy again, along with all of Klal Yisrael, with Moshiach speedily in our days!