BDE: Reb Simcha Yaakov Markowitz, z”l

YS Gold 

BoroPark24 regrets to inform you of the petirah of Reb Simcha Yaakov Markowitz, z”l, a pillar of Boro Park’s Satmar community, a Holocaust survivor and eved Hashem. He was 79 years old and had suffered from illness in recent years. 

The niftar was the son of Reb Yosef Shulem Halevi Markowitz, who hailed from Hungary and transplanted the life that he knew back home to the streets of Boro Park of yore. The Markowitz’s were the founders of the Satmar bikur cholim and dedicated their lives to this mitzvah. 

Reb Simcha Yaakov learned in the Nitra yeshiva and later in the Satmar Yeshiva, where he absorbed a lifelong love of learning. For the rest of his life, he would always be seen with a sefer, and he simply loved learning Torah.

“If you wanted to find him, you knew to look in the Satmar Beis Medrash on 53rd Street,” recalls a grandchild. “He was a pillar of the beis medrash for decades.”

“Despite his business obligations, he nevertheless found hours in the day in which to learn, and he was a true talmid chochom.”

Reb Simcha Yaakov was a man of peace, always seeking to bring peace between people. If something involved strife or argument, he ran from it like from a fire. 

Throughout his ordeal with illness, he only worried about others, not about himself, and went to Shul with great mesirus nefesh until he was literally unable to walk.

“He would take along his tallis and tefillin in a wheeled suitcase and spend the day learning and davening, despite his weakness,” his grandchild recalled.  

Sadly, he was niftar over this past Shabbos, leaving behind beautiful Torah generations and a legacy of Torah and avodah. 

The levaya will take place outside the Satmar Beis Medrash on 53rd Street at 11:00 this morning. 

Yehi zichro baruch.