BDE: Reb Gedalia Spitzer, z”l, Holocaust Survivor, Inspiration to Generations

We are saddened to inform you of the petirah of Reb Gedalia Spitzer at the age of 97. 

Born in Uhel, Hungary in 1923–a center of Jewish life in the prewar era—he encountered the war as a you bachur of 16. Along with the Yidden of his town, he was sent to forced labor at the railways—an ordeal he thought he wouldn’t survive. Through great miracles, he jumped aboard a Budapest-bound train, where he and six friends located uniforms, pretending to be Red Cross workers. In this way, they provided food for people in the ghetto, and rescued many as well

He survived the war with his emunah and bitachon strengthened, and he would go on to build a beautiful Torah family. 

He worked in the clothing business, but he learned every free moment he had. A longtime mispalel at the kavunas halev shul (where he delivered a Mishnayos shiur between mincha and maariv for years—those who grew up in there remember the image of a talmid chochom, a truly choshuve Yid, who never had a bad word to say to anyone. 

Until last year, he came to shul regularly, bringing with him his trademark smile and middos tovos. 

“He was always with a smile, and if you wished him gut Shabbos, his face would light up with the brightest smile,” recalled one grandfather who remembers him since childhood. 

With the passing of Reb Gedalia, z”l, we lost another link to that lost world... and a demus of an old style ehrliche Yid who lived 97 years on this earth with simcha and temimus. 

The levaya will take place at 9:30 am tomorrow morning (Tuesday) in front of the kavunas halev shul (43rd street between 16th and 17th Avenue).

Yehi Zichro Boruch.