BDE: Reb Eliezer Levi, z”l.

We are saddened to inform you of the passing of Reb Eliezer Levi, one of the pillars of the Boyaner kehillah in Boro Park.

He was born in Williamsburg in the year 1928, to his father Reb Chaim Levi, who was himself born in America into a family who staunchly clung to their Yiddishkeit. His father, Reb Avrohom Levi, came to America from Kovno in 1892 (!) and founded Gramco School Supplies and furniture.

His mother came from Bialistok as a young child. Together they would raise a beautiful Torah family that would withstand the winds of assimilation that blew so fiercely in America of their time.

He would speak about the mesirus nefesh for shemiras Shabbos that the family displayed. There were two stores on the entire Graham Avenue in Williamsburg in those days that were closed on Shabbos. Gramco was one of them.

Reb Eliezer learned in Torah Vodaath throughout his yeshiva years, and was close to his Rebbeim, Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, and others.

But it was the Boyaner Rebbe, on the Lower East Side, who captured his heart. “The Rebbe was his entire world, and Boyan became his essence,” relates a grandchild. Reb Eliezer became tethered to the Rebbe, who infused him with the chiyus to withstand the nisyonos of America—and he turn imparted that love and that identity to his own progeny.

When the Tiferes Yisroel Ruzin Yeshiva was being founded by the Boyaner Rebbe, Reb Eliezer and his brothers took an active role in its development—a calling that they upheld throughout their lives. Boyan, its honor, and its wellbeing were their highest priority. His kesher continued with ybl”ch the present Rebbe shlit”a.

In 1979, he moved from Williamsburg to Boro Park, and joined the fledgling Boyaner Kloiz which had recently been founded. Over the ensuing 40 years, he, and ybl”ch, his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, would be pillars of the Kloiz.

In recent years, he donated the bimah in the magnifscent Klois on Fourteenth Avenue, and came regularly to shul until recently. He remained active and lucid, going in to work every day, until he fell ill in recent months. He was niftar Thursday afternoon, leaving behind an incredible legacy.

The lavaya will take place at the Boyaner Kloiz at 10:00 Friday morning.

Yehi Zichro Baruch.