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.





