BDE: Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Holtzman, 87, OBM

With great sadness we report the passing of Rabbi Yaakov Rabbi Tzvi Holtzman OBM, a Crown Heights resident who was tragically killed in an accident. He passed away Thursday, the 4th of Elul, 5781.

He was 87 years old.

Yaakov Tzvi was a child survivor of the Holocaust who ended up in a Chabad orphanage in Paris, France after the war. While there he met The Rebbe who was there in 1947 to meet his mother, who had escaped from the Soviet Union, and escort her to New York. During his stay, he visited the orphanage and tested the kids on their Torah knowledge, awarding prizes.

Tzvi, who was thirteen at the time, used this opportunity to ask the Rebbe if he could come to America. A year later this was arranged and he came to Crown Heights and enrolled in the central Chabad yeshivah there.

In the past years, he would take time once a week to go visit people in a nursing home and put tefillin the Jewish men.

He passed away in a tragic car accident in Wyoming, NY.

He was predeceased by his wife, and is survived by his five children.

The Levaya will talke place Friday, passing by 770 at approximately 11:00am before stopping at his shul, the Rebbe’s House, and then back to Shomrei Hadaas. He will be flying to Eretz Yisroel Motzei Shabbos for Kevurah.

Shiva information to be announced.

Boruch Dayan Hoemes