Four years ago during a visit to Greece, I met at the synagogue of Athens, Rabbi Yaakov Arrar, the rabbi of the local Jewish community, and Rabbi Yitzchak Mezzan his assistant, They are deeply religious men and able leaders of their community.
When I asked them where they had studied, they told they were former students of the Yeshiva of Be’er Yaakov in Israel.
Rabbis Arrar and Mezzen are natives of Larissa, Greece and are Sephardim. One would assume that they received their rabbinic training in a Sephardi Yeshiva. It is not so. The Yeshiva of Be’er Yaakov is modelled after the Yeshivas of Eastern Europe and the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Shapiro, is a grandson of Rabbi Raphael Shapiro, who was head of the famous Yeshiva of Volozhin.
The Yeshiva which is situated on the outskirts of Be’er Yaakov, a small settlement not far from the city of Ramle, was founded twenty seven years ago with the moral encouragement and the financial support of the late Hazon Ish. It has developed into one of the finest Talmudic academies of the Land of Israel.
During my recent stay in Israel, I visited the Yeshiva. I met the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Shapiro, and the Mashgiah, Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe. Rabbi Shapiro studied at the Yeshiva of Mir in Poland. He came to Palestine in 1939 and continued his studies at the Yeshiva in Petah Tikva and then was for many years a student of Rabbi Zeev Soloveitchik of Brisk. He is the author of “Kuntres Be’urim” of which three parts have appeared to date. Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe is well known in the Mussar world. He was a student of the late Rabbi Yeruchem Levovitz, the famous Mashgiah of Mir. After the outbreak of World War II, he succeeded in escaping to Sweden. He was active there in Jewish education and served as the Stockholm representative of the “Va’ad Hatzala”. He is the author of “Alei Shur” and of a guide for newly married young men.
I spent also some time with Rabbi Rapahel Shapiro, a brother of the Rosh Yeshiva who is the director of the institution.
He was born in Bialystock, in which town his father served as Rav, and studied at the Yeshiva of Baranowicz. After the German invasion of Poland he fled to Vilna. In 1941 he arrived in Palestine where he studied at the Yeshiva of Petak Tikva and Ponovez.
Rabbi Shapiro told me at length about the development of the Yeshiva and about its student body.
In the beginning the studies were conducted at the local synagogue. Later a Beth HaMidrash for the Yeshiva was built by the late Reb Nosson Note Holzman. He was an American Jew who had chosen to live in the small settlement of Be’er Yaakov and he was a great help to the Yeshiva during the first year of its existence. His son-in-law, Mr. Morris Smith of New York contributed the kitchen and dining room. Since the death of Mr. Smith, his daughter, Mrs. Clair Sher of Florida has continued her father’s support for the Yeshiva with much devotion. Mr. Manfred Lehman of New York and his family brought from Sweden several prefabricated wooden houses. They were the Yeshiva’s first dormitories.
About twelve years ago, Sir Isaac Wolfson and his family built a new large and beautiful campus for the Yeshiva. It includes a three story dormitory, a large Beth HaMidrash, classrooms, offices, kitchen and dining room and dwellings for the staff.
“The Yeshiva has now about two hundred students. Quite a number of them are Sephardim,” Rabbi Shapiro told me. “From the beginning, we have made special efforts to attract Sephardim and we have been very successful. Sephardi graduates of our Yeshiva occupy rabbinical posts and important teaching positions in Israel as well as abroad.”
“From the beginning we also had students from abroad,” Rabbi Shapiro continued. “The first foreign students came to us at the recommendation of the Hazon Ish. The Rosh Yeshiva and Rabbi Wolpe were very close to the Hazon Ish and consulted him in all matters of the Yeshiva.
“We have now about fifty students from abroad. They come from the USA, Western Europe and even from Australia.”
“We give much individual attention to the students. Our graduates maintain contact with us long after they have left the Yeshiva. Often they ask us to help them with problems in their communities.”
The Yeshiva publishes an annual “HaBe’er” in which staff and students participate. Fourteen volumes have appeared so far.
I met Rabbi Shapiro three months ago at his office in Be’er Yaakov. Last week he arrived in New York; we met and continued our talk. On his way here, Rabbi Shapiro stopped over in Europe where he met former students of the Yeshiva. “They all recall with joy the years they spent in Be’er Yaakov,” he told me.
During his short stay in the country, Rabbi Shapiro will meet with former students who reside in the U.S.A. He will seek to strengthen further their bonds with the Yeshiva and to interest them in new plans of the institution.
The Jewish Press, Friday, March 19, 1978