Rebbetzin Henya Kreindel Lichter, a”h

BROOKLYN
(Top) The levayah of the Kavanas Halev Rebbetzin on Friday in front of the beis medrash. (Bottom) The Kavanas Halev Rebbe at his Rebbetzin’s levayah. (JDN)
(Top) The levayah of the Kavanas Halev Rebbetzin on Friday in front of the beis medrash. (Bottom) The Kavanas Halev Rebbe at his Rebbetzin’s levayah. (JDN)

Rebbetzin Henya Kreindel Lichter, a”h, wife of, ybl”c, Harav Shmuel Zev, the Kavanas Halev Rebbe of Boro Park, shlita, was niftar on Erev Shabbos. She was 74.

The Rebbetzin was remembered for her simchas hachaim and singular dedication to the needs of family and friends, despite life-long health problems.

Rebbetzin Lichter was born in 1940 in the Romanian town of Makava to her parents Reb Shalom Yosef and Alte Shleima Spitzer. She spent much of the Second World War in a “kinderlager,” a model internment camp, run by the Nazis under relatively humane conditions as a propaganda stunt. Her father tragically did not survive the war.

Following liberation, her mother re-married Harav Hillel Lichtenstein, zt”l, the Kransna Rav, who raised young Henda Kreindel and her sister as his own daughters.

At the tender age of eight, she contracted tuberculosis and was sent to a sanitarium in Switzerland for treatment. After nearly a year, young Henya Kriendel recovered, but was left with a physical weakness that remained for the rest of her life.

In 1957, she married Harav Lichter. Throughout their marriage, Rebbetzin Lichter did everything in her power to ensure that her husband’s Torah and avodah should continue without distractions.

Despite her score of physical problems, Rebbetzin Lichter was completely occupied with the needs of her family and others in need. So complete was her selflessness, that her own children were unaware of their mother’s health issues until they grew older.

Rebbetzin Lichter was a picture of the old world “yiddishe mamma,” throwing all of her strength into the needs of her household. Her preparation for Shabbos began on Wednesday without any of the commonly accepted “shortcuts.” The Rebbetzin remained exceptionally loyal to the picture of a Jewish home that she had grown up with and energetically fought any innovation to dress, minhag, or the like.

Yehi zichrah baruch

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