Memory Lane: Harav Sholom Podoliefsky, zt”l

A number of weeks ago, we profiled chevra Bnei Yisroel of Boro Park, which is nearly one hundred years old. In this time, it did not have all that many rabbonim, and today, we profile Rav Sholom Podolefsky, a masmid and talmid chochom, steeped in the European Torah world, who was snatched from this world an untimely age. 

Horodetz

He was born in the Russian town of Horodetz in the year 1911, and was orphaned of his mother from a young age. In the Yizkor book of the town of Horodetz, today in Belarus, he and his brother Shloime described the thriving Jewish life in the town, its rabbonim, its shtieblach, and its simple folk. 

As he grew older, he sought out the Mirer yeshiva, where there many older bachurim. On his way, he made a stop in Brisk, and got semichah from Rav Simcha Zelig Rieger, the dayan of Brisk. 

Leah Peretz was an orphan from the town of Radin. Her father died when she was two, and her mother died when she was nine—leaving her and older sister to raise themselves. A great influence in their lives, however, was the Chofetz Chaim.  She would later relate about the poverty she geew up in, “I never saw a podloge, a finished floor, until I came to America.” She could never get over the luxury of life in this country. On one erev Pesach, she came to the Chofetz Chaim saying that she had nothing with which to make Pesach—at which time the Chofetz Chaim promptly provided them with all the provisions for the entire Pesach. 

She eventually made her way to America where she had a brother, arriving here between the two wars. However, she couldn’t find an appropriate shidduch, so she shlepped herself back to Europe, where the shidduch between her and Rav Sholom was made by a relative. 

In 1937, they married in Horodetz, and Rav Leizer Yudel Finkel was mesader kiddushin.

Leah returned to America, and worked for two years as a tailor in a factory in Manhattan, with the goal of bringing over her husband—while he sat at his shtender in the Mir for two years, among the bachurim there. She was finally able to send him passage documents in 1938. From 1938 until 1944, Rav Sholom served as the rov of a Shul in Harlem, a shul on the Lower East Side, and also learned in a kollel on the Lower East Side headed by Rav Moshe Schneider.  

Boro Park 

In the 1940’s, he accepted the position at Chevra Bnei Yisroel of Boro Park. He also served as a maggid shiur in Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim. 

He was an incredible orator, and a writer who contributed to many Torah journals. Much of his Torah and halachic writings were dedicated to his family and his rebbeim who were killed in the war. 

He had been one of eleven children, and when he heard the news that most of his family was killed, it weakened him greatly. Prior to this, he was known to be very strong physically, but one day following the war, he went for a swim, and got a heart attack in the water. He was able to swim back to shore, but about ten years later, on Erev Shavuos, he got another heart attack and was niftar in his home. 

A grandchild relates that he would always make his way to the kever of his grandfather on trips to Eretz Yisroel. One day, he was approached by a Yid who asked him, “you knew Rav Sholom?” He answered that indeed, it was his grandfather. The Yid was overcome, and said, “He was my rebbe!” 

He introduced himself as Rav Moshe Finkel, a son of the Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Leizer Yudel Finkel, and related the following: “When I learned in Kobrin, your zeide was the choizer of the shiurim of Rav Pesach Pruskin, and I learned the shiurim through him! When we got to the Mir, all the chaverim would gather around the bed of Rav Sholom—so we could hear him repeating Torah in his sleep!” 

He was laid to rest on har manenuchos, following a life dedicated to Torah, with two decades in Boro Park of yesteryear.