From right to left: R. Mordechai Schusterman, R. Moshe Nemanow, R. Nissan Nemanow, YBLCH"T R. Gershon Schusterman.

Rabbi Moshe Nemanow, a scholar and expert on Hebrew manuscripts who worked in the archival division at Chabad’s Central Library in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, passed away Tuesday, May 1. He was 74.

Remembering Rabbi Moshe Nemanow, 74

From right to left: R. Mordechai Schusterman, R. Moshe Nemanow, R. Nissan Nemanow, YBLCH”T R. Gershon Schusterman.

Rabbi Moshe Nemanow, a scholar and expert on Hebrew manuscripts who worked in the archival division at Chabad’s Central Library in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, passed away Tuesday, May 1. He was 74.

Moshe was born in the small town of Yegoryevsk, a suburb of Moscow, to renowned chasidic mentor, Rabbi Nissan, and his wife, Masha Rivka Nemanow, in 1937. Despite the harsh realities of Soviet oppression and wartime austerity, young Moshe was raised in the warmth of the traditional chasidic home. In 1946, when Soviet authorities allowed Polish Jews displaced by the War to return home, the Nemanows, along with hundreds of other Russian-born Chabad Chasidim were able to leave. After staying in the Poking DP camp, the Nemanows ultimately settled in the Parisian suburb of Brunoy. There, Moshe studied under the tutelage of his father in the newly opened branch of Tomchei Temimim, the Chabad-run network of yeshivos.

In 1961 Moshe moved to Brooklyn to further his studies, and two years later, he met and married his wife Miriam Shusterman. Despite his deep insight and vast knowledge of traditional Jewish texts, Nemanow lived a modest life. After his marriage, Rabbi Nemanow worked as a proofreader and typesetter at the Ezra Printing Company owned by his father-in-law, Rabbi Mordechai Shusterman. When the Ezra Printing Company was closed in 1987, Nemanow began to work directly under the auspices of the Kehot Publication Society, the Lubavitch publishing house.

Rabbi Gavriel Schapiro, of Chabad’s Central Library, recalls his late colleague’s expertise in preparing manuscripts for print. “He was able to properly source the material quoted in a given discourse,” Shapiro recalls. “Even when dealing with lacunae in a manuscript, [Nemanow] was able to fill in the missing content.”

Kehot editor Rabbi Avraham D. Vaisfiche and son-in-law of Rabbi Nemanow recalls the dual nature of his father-in-law’s personality. “He was at once, both modest and unassuming, yet intensely personal.”

Rabbi Zalman Marcus, Director of Chabad of Mission Viejo, California, recalls his father-in-law as a man that “didn’t take up any space,” rather focusing all of his energies towards living “in the moment and … for the mitzvah.”

Rabbi Nemanow is survived by his wife, Mrs. Miriam Nemanow, and daughters Mrs. Chanie Moscowitz, Mrs. Sara Paltiel, Mrs. Bassie Marcus, Mrs. Rochel Kantor, Mrs. Sheiny Vaisfiche, as well as his brother, Rabbi Yitzchak Nemanow and sister, Mrs. Rochel Pewsner.

3 Comments

  • A niece

    all these expressions in the article are nice and proper comments but they don’t even come close to describing the true tzaddik and chossid that R’ Moshe was.

    His humbleness and devotion to Hashem and the Rebbes teaching are not seen by many others.

  • I used to watch Him Daven

    I echo Comment #1. The article does not come close to describing his greatness in davening, in serving Hashem. He was a piece of Elokus. He did not relate to mundane matters, they did not mean anything to him. Tehillim meant something, Chassidus meant something, a vort from the Rebbe meant something. Only RMoshe could daven in a noise-filled place like 770 for hours on end on Shabbos.

  • Shliach in la

    He would daven standing -always by a wall- and without a siddur if I remember correctly- he would pour out his heart and daven like that for hours on end