BDE – Harav Dovid Moshe Lieberman, Zt”l of Antwerp

NEW YORK

Hamodia is saddened to report the petirah of Harav Dovid Moshe Lieberman, zt”l, Rav of the Shomrei Hadas kehillah in Antwerp, Belgium, the zkan haRabbanim of European kehillos. He was 96 years old.

Rav Lieberman was born in Cologne (Köln), Germany on 21 Nissan, 5685/April 15, 1925 to his Polish immigrant parents from Mielc. His father, Reb Yitzchak Isaac, was a diamond merchant, and his mother, Sarah Hinda (née Lipschutz), was a descendant of many Chassidishe Rebbes of Poland. His parents moved to Antwerp when he was one year old.

Reb Yitzchak Isaac was in England when Sarah Hinde escaped with her son to France when WWII broke out, and they was imprisoned in the Rivesaltes camp. Sarah Hinde knew that they are being deported, and she sent her son an emotional letter and her marriage ring. Two weeks later she was deported to Auschwitz, where she perished. Reb Isaac survived and later lived in Eretz Yisrael.

Rav Lieberman had learned under Harav Shraga Feivel Shapira, zt”l, Hy”d in Yeshiva Eitz Chaim of Heide, Belgium, before WWII. After he escaped from Rivesaltes, he learned a yeshiva in Marseilles run by Rabbi Shneur Zalman Schneerson, where he survived the War. Later he was a talmid of Hagaon Harav Aharon Kotler, zt”l, in Bais Medrash Govoha of Lakewood, and then learned in Yeshiva Tomchei Temimim of Lubavitch. He received semichah from Harav Yisrael Zev Gustman and Harav Moshe Feinstein, zichronam levrachah.

Harav Yoseph Yitzchok Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, zy”a, sent Rav Lieberman to Chicago in 1949, where he served a Rav in Congregation Bnei Reuvein, and in 1956 served Congregation Ohr Chadash, and taught in the local elementary school. After staying there until 1967, when he moved to Detroit and served as a Menahel in Yeshiva Bais Yehudah in Detroit before assuming the position as Rav of Shomrei Hadas of Antwerp in 1981. He was admired by all, and many in the Machzikei Hadas kehillah in Antwerp would consult with him regularly.

In 1950, he married Rebbetzin Chaya née Chitrik, a”h (the daughter of Rabbi Yehudah, z”l), who was born in Kharkov and spent the War year in Uzbekistan. She was niftar in on 25 Shvat, 5673.

In his later years, he suffered from macular degeneration and lost his eyesight, but maintained his learning schedule by having chavrusos who would read the seforim that they were learning from, and by a technological device which read the words of the seforim for him. He even made a siyum hashas from what he learned after losing his eyesight.

Rav Lieberman was hospitalized several weeks ago when he broke his hip, and on Wednesday, 24 Shvat/January 26, he asked to be brought home. That afternoon, he asked his daughter to get his hat, rekel and gartel to daven minchah, and then made a brachah of Shehakol on a drink of water, and his lofty neshamah left him as the evening of 25 Shvat set in, exactly 9 years to the day after the petirah of his Rebbetzin.

Rav Lieberman survived by his sons Rabbi Mendel Lieberman of Ashkelon and Rabbi Tzvi Lieberman of London; his daughters Mrs. Sarah Kaplan of Tzfas,  Mrs. Rochel Chitrik of Tzfas, , Mrs. Yehudis Krasnjansky of Australia, Mrs. Shulamis Pinson of Brussels and Mrs. Esther Wilhelm of Zhitomir, Ukraine; and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. His grandson, Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, is the Rav of Istanbul, Turkey and Chairman of Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic State.

Kevurah will be on Har Hazeisim in Yerushalayim.

Yehi zichro baruch.

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