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NEWS
Reception in London for Moscow Yeshiva
by Yated Ne'eman Staff
The miraculous revival of Yiddishkeit in Russia and
the instrumental role of Yeshivas Toras Chaim of Moscow,
which was founded 14 years ago by Rabbi Moshe Soloveitchik
zt"l of Zurich, was the theme of a well-attended
reception that was held last Sunday night (7 December) in
honor of Rabbi Moshe Lebel, its rosh yeshiva, in the home of
Mr. Mendy Bude.
The reception was graced by the presence of Dayan Chanoch
Ehrentreu, the rosh beis din of the London Beis Din,
as well as Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the Chief Rabbi of
Moscow, and Reb Yisroel Brunner, a long-time benefactor of
the Yeshiva who came especially from Antwerp for the
occasion. Councilor Abba Dunner was in the chair.
Dayan Ehrentreu described the Yeshiva's phenomenal success
with Russian Jewry as a manifestation of Hashem's
Hashgocho for Klal Yisroel; just as the Romans
had attempted to destroy Yiddishkeit but failed to
destroy its spirit, so the flourishing of Yiddishkeit
in Russia that we have witnessed in the last few years,
as exemplified by the Yeshiva, is proof that the Communists
also failed to destroy the spirit of Yiddishkeit.
Rabbi Goldschmidt pointed out that many of the Yeshiva alumni
are not only learning in the best yeshivos in Eretz Yisroel
and the United States, but are also taking up rabbinic
positions in other cities of the former Soviet Union, thereby
planting the seeds for a revolution in Russian Jewry similar
to the ba'al teshuva movement that has taken hold
amongst the Sephardim in Eretz Yisroel. He attributed its
success to the fact that it is one of the few institutions in
the former Soviet Union that is based on da'as Torah.
He declared that there could be no future for Yiddishkeit
in Russia without the Yeshiva as it undertakes the major
portion of the kiruv work in that country and is
therefore the foremost mokom Torah in eastern
Europe.
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