Iconic Williamsburg: Rav Avrohom Shloime Blumenkrantz

The aftermath of the Holocaust found Williamsburg teeming with survivors from the terrible Churban. Prominent among them was a small, but strong chaburah of Mirrer alumni. A number of them formed the legendary Mirrer Minyan, but Rav Avrohom Shloime took a position as the Rov of Beis Talmud Torah on Meserole Street, where he served with great dedication for forty years.  

Shloime Visoker 

He was born in the town of Wysokie, near Brisk, in the year 1920. His father was Rav Mordechai Dovid Blumenkrantz and his mother was Leah, Hy”d. She would later be killed in Vilna. When he was a young boy, the family moved to distant Warsaw, where Rav Mordechai Dovid assumed the position of the menahel and mashgiach of Yeshiva Toras Chaim, also known as “the Gensha Yeshiva,” based on the street where it was located. 

He journeyed from Warsaw to Lomza and enrolled in the yeshiva there, and from there he entered the Mirrer yeshiva of which he would consider himself a lifelong talmid. Tragedy struck two weeks into his time at the Mir when his father suddenly passed away. 

Shanghai

In a sefer which he would publish decades later, he pays tribute to his rebbeim who influenced him in his pursuit of Torah learning—both in the Mir as well as in Shanghai—the Rosh Yeshiva Rav Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, Rav Chaim Shmeuelevitz, and Rav Chaskel Levenstein. 

They, in turn, recall in their approbations to the sefer his early promise and the way he toiled in learning during his days in the Mir. “It gives me pleasure to see how he continues to be mechadeish chiddushim even in America,” writes Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz.  

In the approbation to his sefer on Rambam, hilchos avodas kochavim, Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz writes, “I have known him since our days in Shanghai where he learned with great diligence.” The material conditions for the Mirer talmidim in Shanghai were notoriously difficult—but Rav Shloime was sustained by the sweetness of Torah, overcoming all challenges in his singular pursuit of Torah. 

Williamsburg 

In December of 1947 he became engaged to Roiza Dachowitz, the daughter of the legendary Rav Tzvi Hirsch Dachowitz of Brownsville. 

He later recalled the Yomim Nora’im on the year of his engagement, which he spent with his future father-in-law, and the incredible scene that took place at the Nusach Ari shul in Brownsville. “The shul was mobbed…” relates Reb Mordechai Blumenkrantz, a son of Rav Shloime, “and police had called to the shul to maintain order, and make room for the rabbi to get in. Rav Dachowitz grabbed his chosson, and said, ‘he is with me.’” 

Congregation Beis Talmud Torah was one of the first Talmud Torah’s to be founded in Williamsburg, and was located at 61 Meserole Street. Rav Blumenkrantz was appointed as its rov soon after his marriage, and he would serve in this capacity with great dedication for more than forty years. 

Alongside his rabbonus of the congregation, where he would deliver regular shiurim at the shul and maintain the Talmud Torah of hundreds of students, he sat and toiled in Torah all day. His hasmodoh was incredible. There was one cousin with whom he would learn every Friday night from nine till twelve at night. He also had chavrusos with the great ga’on Rav Tzvi Zharkovsky, also of the Mir, and one Rav Binyomin Steinfeld. The fruits of his Torah is, in part, contained his four seforim, on Rambam hilchos Sotah, Avodas Kochavim , Shabbos, and hilchos Yom Hakippurim.

One of his dear chaverim from the Mir with whom he kept up was Rav Nachum Partzovitz who sent two pages of he’aros on Rav Blumenkrantz’s manuscript, which he printed in the sefer. When Rav Nochum was unwell, Rav Bluemenkrantz was instrumental in his medical care, helping to bring him to Minnsesota for treatment.  

Another chaver was Rav Shmuel Berenbaum, Rosh Yeshiva of the Mir in Flatbush. “When he had a surgery or procedure, he would send me to Rav Shmuel to get a brocho that it should go well,” his son recalls. 

The Talmud Torah shul was largely comprised of simple people who resided in that part of Williamsburg. But there were also some distinguished people among them. “He would always tell me to be mechabed the president, Mr. Solomon,” recalls his son, “for his was a talmid of Rav Shimon Shkop.” 

Rav Shloime could keep his large audience spellbound, and he would speak after mussaf, and deliver a well-attended droshoh on Shabbos afternoon. His Shabbos hagodol droshoh could last for an hour and forty-five minutes. 

As the years went on, the shul dwindled in numbers, and the weekday minyan had to be closed. Rav Bluemenkrantz felt that a shul with only a Shabbos minyan was no shul, and he gave up the rabbonus of more than forty years—which was heartbreaking for him. 

Rav Avrohom Shloime was niftar in the summer of 2001 and was interred in Eretz Yisroel.