This Day in History – 27 Av/August 12

In 5628/1868, S.A. Bierfield was lynched by the Ku Klux Klan in Franklin, Tennessee, the first such incident involving a Jew.


 

Yahrtzeiten

5408/1648 Harav Yehoshua Charif, Rav of Cracow, zt”l, author of Maginei Shlomo

5615/1855, Harav Avraham Mordechai Alter, zt”l, son of the Chiddushei Harim and father of the Sfas Emes

5702/1942, Harav Yehuda Fatiyah, zt”l, noted mekubal, author of Minchas Yehudah


 

5757/1997, Harav Shmuel Tzvi Hersh Horowitz, zt”l, of Spinka

Reb Hershele, as he was fondly called, was born in 5681/1921 to Harav Avraham Abish of Kruly. His mother was a daughter of the Chakal Yitzchak of Spinka.

Reb Hershele was cherished by his grandfather, the Chakal Yitzchak. He would often watch as his grandfather accepted kvitlach from Chassidim. On one occasion, his grandfather called him over and insisted that he read one. “You will need to know how to read kvitlach one day,” he said.

During WWII he was sent to Auschwitz, where he found a true chaver, Lipa, Hy”d, the son of the Klausenburger Rebbe, zy”a. These two bachurim were moser nefesh for Torah and Yiddishkeit under the most dire situations. They learned pages of Gemara from memory and maintained a high level of Yiddishkeit, inspiring all those around them.

After the war, Reb Hershele main concern was his devotion to the Bashefer. He would sway back and forth over his Gemara in the beis medrash that the Klausenburger Rebbe founded in the DP camp. Elderly Chassidim recognized his greatness and, soon enough, despite his young age, people with broken hearts and shattered souls began streaming to him.

Soon after, he married his Rebbetzin, Esther Rachel, a”h, the daughter of Harav Berish Weinberger, a prominent talmid chacham.

Eventually he settled in Williamsburg, Brooklyn where he gained renown as an exemplary ohev Yisrael, and could usually be found deeply immersed in learning Torah.

During the last period of his life, the Rebbe was extremely weak. Nevertheless, he made a tremendous effort to read all of the numerous kvitlach that were brought to him. He was niftar on Shabbos, 27 Av 5757/1997.

Yehi zichro baruch.


 

August 12

In 1867, President Andrew Johnson sparked a move to impeach him as he defied Congress by suspending Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.

In 1953, the Soviet Union conducted a secret test of its first hydrogen bomb.

In 1960, the first balloon communications satellite — the Echo 1 — was launched by the United States from Cape Canaveral.

In 1981, IBM introduced its first personal computer, the model 5150, at a press conference in New York.

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