Shliach Fulfills Promise to 100-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor

A moving scene unfolded as Rabbi Avraham Chaim Zilber, shliach to Merom Canaan, visited a Holocaust survivor on his 100th birthday in Yerushalayim. 10 years earlier, at his 90th birthday, the shliach said they would celebrate his 100th together – and he kept his word.

By Anash.org reporter

A heartwarming scene unfolded in a Yerushalayim nursing home before Pesach, as Rabbi Avraham Chaim Zilber, shliach to Merom Canaan near Tzfas, fulfilled a decade-old promise to a special Holocaust survivor.

Ten years ago, Rabbi Zilber had celebrated the 90th birthday of Reb Moshe Sheinvald, a Hungarian-born Jew who survived Auschwitz and multiple labor camps before settling in Tzfas and later Merom Canaan. At that celebration in shul, Rabbi Zilber made a promise: wherever Reb Moshe would be, he would come personally to celebrate his 100th birthday.

Just before Pesach, Reb Moshe turned 100 years old, and Rabbi Zilber kept his word. He traveled to Yerushalayim, to the nursing home where Reb Moshe was now living, bringing a birthday cake and handmade shmurah matzah to personally celebrate Reb Moshe’s incredible milestone.

Born on 5 Nissan 5685 (1925) in Hungary, Reb Moshe endured the horrors of the Holocaust from the young age of 19, surviving Auschwitz and forced labor camps. After the war, he made his way to Eretz Yisrael, settling in Tzfas, where he dedicated himself to chinuch as the principal of a religious school. In 5781, he was honored with the title “Yakir Ir Tzfas” (Esteemed Citizen of Tzfas).

In a video excerpt from the celebration, Reb Moshe shared that he attributes his long life to a special bracha he received at age five from his Rebbe, Rav Dovid Meislish of Uhel.

He also recounted a remarkable story from his time in Bergen-Belsen:

His community’s rabbi, Harav Chaim Meislish – the son of R’ Dovid – courageously requested a meeting with the camp’s SS commander to ask permission to bake matzos for Pesach. Though the commander warned that approval would have to come from the infamous SS chief, Himmler, yemach shemo, and was almost certain to be denied, miraculously, permission was granted.

In order to bake the matzos, Reb Moshe and about forty fellow Jews gave up their daily bread rations, yet through this great sacrifice, they merited to eat matzah for the entire Yom Tov.

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