How Rav Aharon Rokeach brought postwar Belz back to life

Photos: YIVO, Belz Archives, Winners Auctions, Kedem Auctions, The Pini Dunner Collection, David Leitner

Rav Ahrele Belzer accepted the loss of his family during the Holocaust with the equanimity of his Biblical namesake, Vayidom Aharon. But he refused to allow his personal devastation to spell the end of the Belzer dynasty. How did a man so removed from worldly pleasure possess the keen insight to intuit the needs of a generation? How did this otherworldly rebbe innovate and rebuild Belz in postwar Israel? And how did he institute forward-thinking measures that only enhanced and bolstered the legacy of the past?

“There are those who merit the World to Come with just one act: this is your opportunity! Assist in the rescue of the Belzer Rav!”

The ancient Sephardic community of Halab (Aleppo) was abuzz on a cool February day in 1944. Fathers exited the K’nees (shul) donned in finery as they hurried along with their children, hoping to merit a glimpse of the great tzaddik passing through the city’s rail junction. He would have no choice but to stop here: A mere 30 miles from the border of British-controlled Palestine, all foreign aliens arriving from Nazi-occupied territory were disembarked, rigorously searched, and interrogated by British security services. A war was raging, and anyone could be an enemy spy or operative.

According to the train’s manifest, the guest in question was one “Rabbi Twersky” who was accompanied on his journey by “Rabbi Pecsenik.” They were among a refugee group that had arrived from Budapest via Bucharest and Istanbul.

An agent approached and the questioning began, but the rabbi hardly responded. The more aggressive the interrogation, the less cooperative the rabbi became. Finally, the agent had enough and decided that the rabbi and his assistant would need to be taken into custody, until additional background information about him could be established.

His entourage was aghast, but their pleas fell on deaf ears, and the great Rebbe of Belz, Rav Aharon Rokeach, who had endured a convoluted and draining journey from Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe to the Middle East, was taken into custody and dragged to the local police station just one stop short of his final destination. He had come so close — but was yet so far.

An angel appeared in the nick of time. This was no simple angel but one of the great rescue activists of the Holocaust era, Israel’s Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Halevi Herzog.

Rav Herzog was en route to Istanbul along with his son, future Israeli diplomat Yaacov. There they planned to beg local leaders of the Greek Orthodox Church to assist their rescue efforts.

It was Rav Herzog who had initially pleaded with the Jewish Agency’s director of immigration, Chaim Moshe Shapira, to issue precious visas on behalf of the Rebbe and his brother. “There are those who merit the world to come with just one act,” he told Shapira. “This is your opportunity! Assist with the rescue of the Belzer Rav.”

Now, with the Rebbe’s journey to freedom tantalizingly close to its finale, Rav Herzog and company had timed their journey so they could stop in Aleppo, close to the border, and be among the first to welcome the Rebbe. Alighting from the train, Rav Herzog was greeted by leading members of the Aleppan Jewish community. “Has the great tzaddik arrived yet?” was his first question.

The Rebbe’s passport. During his harrowing escape from Eastern Europe, his papers identified him as “Rabbi Twersky” – but Israel’s Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Herzog knew the true identity of the tzaddik apprehended by the British security services

He was shocked to hear the reply: “Yes, but the British have taken him to the police station for questioning.”

Yaacov Herzog immediately took action. Arriving at the police station, he witnessed a scene that shook him to the core. An emaciated Belzer Rav and his brother, Rav Mordechai, were among a group of more than 20 Jews confined to a dark and dirty basement cell, where a group of British agents began to forcefully interrogate them. Herzog immediately produced his credentials and began to negotiate with the chief of police. Little progress was made, and he called for his father, who hastened to the office of the district police commander and explained that the weakened rabbi was in no position to be interrogated. Impressed by Rav Herzog’s pleas, the commander agreed to release the Rebbe into Rav Herzog’s “custody,” with the remainder of the group to be released shortly thereafter.

Yaacov Herzog then took matters into his own hands. Noticing that the weakened Rebbe — who had been practically fasting for months — was unable to walk unassisted, he gently lifted and carried the tzaddik out of the police station to a nearby hotel, where he could rest and avoid unwanted attention. Several minutes later, they were joined by Rav Herzog.

The meeting between these two giants clearly made a deep impression on famed journalist Yonah Cohen, who was present at the time and immortalized the moment in his book To the Forgotten Million:

The exhausted rabbi stood to honor the chief rabbi and gripped the arm of his chair, but the chief rabbi quickly motioned that he should take his seat. For a moment they both stood, the rabbi from the Land of Israel and the “king” — the Belzer Rebbe — facing one another. They met as the Belzer Rav was half erect and for a long moment they embraced each other warmly. Then the Rebbe suddenly burst into bitter sobs.

For Yonah Cohen (and practically all others) it would seem a wild fantasy that this broken survivor of a decimated Polish Jewry would ever succeed in rebuilding his lost kingdom. Yet just a few days later the Rebbe made it clear his ambitions extended far beyond mere survival. He entered the Land of Israel by way of its northern border and spent his first Shabbos there in Haifa. In honor of Shabbos Shirah, the Rebbe addressed the small gathering:

Az yashir. Rashi states that from here we see that there will be techiyas hameisim. How do we see that? Because the Jewish People sang. Shortly before the exodus from Egypt, four-fifths of the Jewish People died during the plague of Choshech. Everyone must have lost most of their family. And yet shortly afterward they were able to sing. How could the survivors sing? It must be that they firmly believed that one day the dead would rise to life once again. Only with a belief in techiyas hameisim is it possible to sing. Without that belief it’s impossible…