Iconic Williamsburg: Rav Pinchos Ingberman

In August of 1955, an El Al plane was shot down over Bulgaria, in an act that its government would later admit was a terrorist act. Among the dozens killed in the attack was a young dynamic and talented Rov by the name of Rav Pinchos Ingberman, a Novaradoker talmid and the beloved rov of Congregation Tiferes Yisroel/The Brisker Shul at Bedford and Clymer Street in Williamsburg. 

‘The Makover Iluy’  

He was born in the Russian town of Makova, and by the time he was a young boy, his fame spread around the area as an iluy. Rav Avorhom Joffen, the Rosh Yeshiva of Beis Yosef-Novaradok, related to one of his talmidim, “It has been a while since I have met an iluy of such caliber.” 

As is well-known, Novaradok opened many yeshivos throughout Poland, and Pinchos entered the branch of Beis Yosef in the town of Pułtusk, a hamlet near Makowa, and when he advanced, he was sent to the flagship yeshiva in Biyalistok. “Here we see him engaged with all the senior bachurim, the accomplished ones, fresh and energetic, asking and answering, listening and adding,” recalled Rav Benzion Bruk, one of his chaverim from that time. 

“With his great kishron, he quickly absorbed the mehalech of learning and mussar of the yeshiva, and elevated himself. His rebbeim foretold great things for him, and his chaverim saw in him a meyuchad sheb’chaburah,” Rav Bruk writes further. 

With the outbreak of the war, he exiled together with the yeshiva to Vilna, and then to Birzh, in Lita. When Hitler, Ym”sh, came to the area, the group was taken from Birzh to Siberia, where they would spend the next few years. 

Rabbonus in America 

After the war he rejoined the yeshiva in a suburb outside Paris, and there he sunk his mind into learning, as though a terrible war had not just annihilated most of his family and bnei Yeshiva. In 1946, he finally joined the yeshiva in Boro Park, and became a maggid shiur in the yeshiva—admired deeply by the chaverim and Roshei Yeshiva who well-recalled the Makover Iluy. 

In 1950, he became a rov in Plainfield, New Jersey, as the Courier News reports: “An installation ceremony for the new spiritual leader of Congregation Ohavey Zedek V’sholom, Rabbi Pincus Ingberman, will be held tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. in the W. Front Street Synagogue. Prominent members of Plainfield Jewry, as well as visiting Rabbis from New York, will attend the celebration.” The aforementioned “Rabbis” refers to Rav Avrohom Jofen, and his son-in-law, Rav Yehuda Leib Nekritz, who are photographed on the dais on the event. 

In 1953, he became the Rov of the Brisker Shul, a very prominent position. He was beloved and admired, and his shiurim were extremely popular, as we can see from the many newspaper clippings that advertised these events. 

Tragically, he was in London, and took an ill-fated flight to Eretz Yisroel, which was shot down over Bulgaria.

‘Left all to Brooklyn Yeshiva’ 

“Air tragedy victim leaves all to Brooklyn yeshiva New York, said one newspaper A Brooklyn yeshiva is the beneficiary of an insurance policy of a Brooklyn rabbi killed on the El A1 Airlines flight shot down over Bulgaria. Rabbi Pincus Ingberman, 35, named Yeshiva Beth Joseph of Borough Park, Brooklyn, an institution which helped bring him to America, as the beneficiary of a policy he took out before he left the United States. 

“Three days before beginning his fatal trip, Rabbi Ingberman received a Ph. D. from Dropsie college. After that, a letter found in his home revealed, he wrote a letter to his brother in Israel, whom he hadn’t seen for 20 years, and again put off the trip which,” acquaintances said, “he was afraid to make. Apparently, however, he changed his mind, left the letter unmailed, and boarded the plane. 

The Novaradoker talmidim never forgot their brilliant and beloved chaver. In newspapers of the era, we find numerous clippings about hespedim and gatherings, and they founded Yad Pinchos, a scholarship fund, in his memory. 

Walking into the beis hachaim in Kiryat Shaul, there is an airplane-shaped memorial, where the victims were laid to rest. There, one will find the name of Rav Ingberman, zt”l, who dedicated his life to Torah, and teaching Torah, in Williamsburg of yore.