Rabbi Lipa Schapiro and his young family spent six years as resettled refugees in Paris, although they originally planned to stay in the French capital for only six weeks.
Rabbi Lipa Schapiro, a senior member of the central Chabad-Lubavitch rabbinical committee who mastered the study of Jewish law at the height of Soviet religious persecutions, passed away March 14 at the age of 97.
Obituary: Rabbi Lipa Schapiro, Trained Under Communism Dedicated Himself to Community
Rabbi Lipa Schapiro, a senior member of the central Chabad-Lubavitch rabbinical committee who mastered the study of Jewish law at the height of Soviet religious persecutions, passed away March 14 at the age of 97.
Born in 1912 in Kralevitch, Russia – the same city where his grandfather, Rabbi Yehudah Leib Schapiro, served as the community’s rabbi at the behest of the Third Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel, known as the Tzemach Tzedek – Schapiro spent much of his childhood learning secretly from private tutors supported by his parents, Nochum and Raizel Schapiro. As Communism swept across Russia, living a Jewish life got progressively harder, but the family maintained a steadfast commitment to Judaism.
Schapiro’s mother was “very smart and clever,” he once said. “People used to consult her on various challenges in their lives.”
By the age of 13, Schapiro was seeking Jewish education elsewhere in the city of Ramen in one of the clandestine underground schools run by Chabad-Lubavitch. As was usual amongst the institutions, Schapiro’s school moved to a new location every six months to elude the secret police. Each time, the young student followed his teachers to Kremitchuk, Polatsk and Kharkov, as well as other places.
In Kharkov, students were forced by the authorities to disperse, and Schapiro returned home to Kralevitch. There, the town’s rabbi and scholar, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Dubrawski, noticed that the young man lacked a study partner and offered to help him in his Talmudic studies.
With Dubrawski, Schapiro was exposed to the breadth and depth of Jewish law, and one day, the scholar instructed Schapiro to respond to religious inquiries under his tutelage. For the two years of his apprenticeship, Schapiro acquired the tools and expertise that would later serve him well as a rabbinic advisor.
In 1937, Schapiro married Chana Vilenkin, the daughter of a ritual slaughter in Yekaterinoslav, known today as Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine.
Yoseph
Oy, as a single father of six how do I explain this to my children. Lipa was a great man…… oy