BDE: Rabbi Moshe Handelsman, Zt”l, Long-Time Executive Director of Mirrer Yeshiva

Rabbi Moshe Handelsman, zt”l, the long-time, beloved executive director of the Mirrer Yeshiva in Flatbush, was niftar Monday evening 14 Adar I/February 14, at the age of 92.

He was born in Czernowitz, Romania in April 1929 to Reuven and Feiga Raizel Handelsman. When he was but twelve-and-a-half-years old, the Holocaust came to Romania, and the Handelsman family was deported to the ghettos and forced labor of Romanian-occupied Transnistria.

When the family was rounded up, all women were ordered to throw their wedding rings into a box, in a story Rabbi Handelsman would relate years later when he had the pleasure of speaking at the bar mitzvahs of his grandsons and great-grandsons. When Reuven saw that Feiga Raizel was distraught at losing her ring, he comforted her by saying that while, “If the world will be again, I’ll get you a new ring,” but more importantly, “I have Moshe’le’s tefillin with me!”

Feiga Raizel Handelsman died shortly after their arrival in the ghetto, but the rest of the family — Moshe, his three brothers and his father— survived.

The Handelsman family was determined to maintain shmiras hamitzvos in the camps. One Chanukah, Reuven traded a garment for three potatoes, then hollowed out holes, filled them with oil, and, using threads from his coat for wicks, they lit the menorah. Despite their having to shovel coal for 12 hours a day, Reuven would wake the boys up early to daven with a minyan. These lessons of chavivas hamitzvos would always remain with Moshe, who attended minyanim, punctually and often from the asarah rishonim, even well into his 80’s.

Throughout his life, Rabbi Handelsman would tell his children and grandchildren the line that his father would repeatedly say in the ghetto, which got them through the darkest of days: “Kinder, der Eibeshter hat biz yetzt gehelfen, uhn ehr veht veiter helfen — Children, Hashem has helped us until now, and he will continue to help us.”

After liberation by the Russian troops, the family returned to Romania, then miraculously managed to escape the Communist country and arrive in Vienna.

While in Vienna, Reuven spent a substantial portion of his meager funds to pay a rebbe, Rabbi Dovid Ashkenazy, to learn with Moshe. Rabbi Handelsman would later relate this, and mention how his father had expressed particular regret over Moshe’s having lost three years of education while in the ghetto, in emphasizing to his grandchildren the importance of education.

Rabbi Ashkenazy later visited the Mirrer Yeshiva in Flatbush, and, believing it would a suitable yeshiva for his student, recommended to Harav Avraham Kalmanowitz, zt”l, Rosh Yeshiva of the Mirrer Yeshiva and a legend of the Vaad Hatzalah, that Rav Kalmanowitz sponsor Moshe’s immigration to the United States. “Trust me, you’ll never regret taking him,” Rav Ashkenazy assured the rosh yeshivah.

Moshe immigrated to the United States in the early 1950’s — shortly after his father did — on Rav Kalmanowitz’s sponsorship.

Moshe learned in the Mirrer Yeshiva, where he grew close to Rav Kalmanowitz and other leaders of the yeshiva. Rav Kalmanowitz was the shadchan of the marriage between Moshe Handelsman and Toba Israel.

Rabbi Handelsman served for decades as charismatic executive director of Mirrer Yeshiva, while also maintaining a rigorous learning schedule. Although he retired in the 1990s, he worked unofficially for the yeshiva in subsequent years.

Despite all the hardships he underwent — his mother being niftar at a young age; having his bar mitzvah in a ghetto; experiencing three years of hard labor, hunger and cold, with the specter of death ever-present; and his wife Toba passing away before the age of 70 — Rabbi Handelsman would point to his family of shomrei Torah umitzvos, talmidei chachamim and bnos Yisrael, and say, “The Eibishter owes me nothing.”

After the petirah of his wife Toba in 1997, Rabbi Handelsman married tbl”c Mrs. Yehudis Hirsch. In recent years, as illness overtook him, he moved to Lakewood and lived with his son Harav Michel Handelsman, before spending his final weeks in nursing homes and hospitals.

As his health deteriorated and the end was near, he was virtually uncommunicative and those around him were unsure how much he understood, but he was at times able to enjoy nachas from his family. When a granddaughter visited to tell him of her engagement, he became visibly emotional. When a grandson informed him of the birth of yet another great-grandchild, despite his having hardly spoken in weeks and having had a tracheotomy, Rabbi Handelsman shocked the grandson by whispering, “Mazel Tov.” And when his son told him a d’var Torah and asked, “Isn’t it a good vort, Tatty?” Rabbi Handelsman nodded.

Rabbi Moshe Handelsman was niftar Monday evening at Kimball Hospital in Lakewood, surrounded by generations of adoring descendants.

The levayah began Tuesday morning at the Mesivta of Lakewood, then at the Mirrer Yeshiva in Brooklyn. Kevurah was Wednesday on Har Hamenuchos in Yerushalayim.

Rabbi Handelsman is survived by tbl”c his wife Mrs. Yehudis Handelsman; his children Mrs. Faygie Borchardt, Rabbi Lazer Handelsman, Rabbi Michel Handelsman and Mrs. Yitty Sternbuch; and many grandchildren (including this reporter) and great-grandchildren.

Yehi zichro baruch.

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rborchardt@hamodia.com