This Day In History 20 Elul/September 11

20 Elul

In 5154/1394, the French King, Charles VI, ordered the expulsion of all Jews.

In 5702/1942, the ghetto of Mir was liquidated.

Yahrtzeiten

5350/1590, Harav Yehudah Muskato, zt”l, mechaber of Nefutzos Yehudah

5474/1714, Harav Shimon Reisher, zt”l, mechaber of Minchas Yehudah.

5702/1942, Harav Avraham Weinberg of Stutchin, zt”l, mechaber of Reishis Bikurim

5729/1969, Harav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, zt”l, the Ponevezer Rav

5730/1970, Harav Eliyahu Lopian, zt”l.

5756/1996

Harav Moshe Aryeh Freund, zt”l, Gaavad of the Eidah Chareidis of Yerushalayim

Harav Moshe Aryeh Freund, zt”l, Gaavad of the Eidah Chareidis of Yerushalayim

Harav Moshe Aryeh Freund was born in 5664/1904 in the Hungarian town of Honiad, where his father, Harav Yisrael, served as Av Beis Din. His paternal grandfather was Harav Avraham Yehoshua Freund, zt”l, the Naszoider Rav.

His mother was the daughter of Harav Zev Goldberger, zt”l, the Rav of Honiad. He was a descendant of the Rema, the Maharshal, the Shach and the Beis Yosef.

At 16 he married the daughter of Harav Baruch Goldberger, a distant relative.

Before World War II, Reb Moshe Aryeh was Rosh Yeshivah in the Hungarian town of Satu Mare.

The Nazis, ym”s, arrested him and his entire family in 1944. The family was deported to Auschwitz, where only Reb Moshe Aryeh survived; his wife and all of his nine children died there at the hands of the Nazis. Hashem yinkom damam.

In 5711/1951 Reb Moshe Aryeh moved to Eretz Yisrael, settling in Yerushalayim, where he became the Rav of the Satmar community. He was also Rosh Yeshivah of Yeshivas Yetev Lev, the Satmar Yeshivah in Yerushalayim.

Following the petirah of the Satmar Rebbe on 26 Av 5739/1979, Reb Moshe Aryeh was elected Rosh Av Beis Din of the Eidah Chareidis in Yerushalayim, a position better known as “Raavad.”

After the petirah of Harav Yitzchak Yaakov Weiss, zt”l, in Sivan 5749/1989, Reb Moshe Aryeh was appointed Gaon Av Beis Din (Gaavad) of the Eidah Chareidis, a position he held until his petirah. Many related to him as Rebbe.

As a person of sterling middos, Reb Moshe Aryeh was close with all Gedolei Rabbanim and Gedolei Hachassidus.

Reb Moshe Aryeh was niftar on 20 Elul 5756/1996 at 92 and was buried on Har Hazeisim. He left no children.

Reb Moshe Aryeh was the mechaber of Ateres Yehoshua on the Torah.

Mosdos were named after him in Yerushalayim and in Beit Shemesh: Kiryas Harema, Rema standing for Reb Moshe Aryeh.

Zecher tzaddik livrachah.

September 11

In 1789, Alexander Hamilton was appointed the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.

In 1936, Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) began operation as President Franklin D. Roosevelt pressed a key in Washington to signal the startup of the dam’s first hydroelectric generator.

In 1941, groundbreaking took place for the Pentagon. In a speech that drew accusations of anti-Semitism, Charles A. Lindbergh told an America First rally in Des Moines, Iowa, that “the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt administration” were pushing the United States toward war.

In 1997, Scots voted to create their own Parliament after 290 years of union with England.