Born in Krosno, a town near Bialystok, in the year 1916, Dina Volodska spent her early years basking in the warmth of her family. Her father was chazzan Reb Aryeh Leib, her mother, Chaya Sara, and she had two sisters, Tybele and Shaindel, who were students of Sarah Schenirer.

Dina was the sole survivor of her family, and over 70 years after they’d all been slaughtered, she still spoke longingly of the warmth and vibrant Torah family she had come from, and the wonderful education she had received.

When Dina was five, the family moved to Grodno. Every Simchas Torah, crowds of rejoicing Jews would gather to witness Reb Shimon Shkop being carried through the streets. The Shkop family was the royalty of Grodno, and when Dina was introduced to Rav Avraham Shkop, grandson of Rav Shimon ztz”l, she was honored and surprised at his interest in her.

“He wanted to marry me, I don’t know why,” she once said.

Perhaps the budding talmid chacham saw in her the light that she’d carry for 102 years.

Escape through Europe

Dina was engaged but not yet married when the Nazis invaded. She joined her future in-laws as they escaped with the Mirrer Yeshivah. She felt that the guards inspecting her visa somehow knew her status, despite the name “Shkop” on her official papers. But she was allowed passage, along with her future in-laws, and they headed across Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Once in Vladivostok, the Shkops, along with many members of the Mirrer Yeshivah, boarded a ship to Japan.

On the long journey, Dina took care of her future father-in-law, Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Shkop, who had a special diet, by cooking potatoes for him. Decades later, she would still marvel over the scene.

“They let me put my tiny little pot of potatoes on their big industrial stove,” she’d say wonderingly. “Such hashgachah for my father-in-law, a tzaddik.”

While the yeshivah continued on from Kobe, Japan, to Shanghai, five families from the group were granted visas for America. The Shkops were among them, and it was only when they reached America that Avrohom and Dina finally married.

The other families were Rav Moshe Leib and Rebbetzin Sara Levovitz of the Mirrer Yeshivah (Rebbetzin Shkop would recall fondly how Rebbetzin Levovitz gave birth on the ship to America); Rav Avraham and Rebbetzin Sara Yafen (daughter of the Alter of Novardok), along with three of their children; Rav Shatzkes, the rav of Lomza; and Rav Dovid and Rebbetzin Tzipporah Chava Lifshitz and their daughter, Shulamis.

The bonds formed between these families lasted long after they sailed past the Statue of Liberty. Years later, Rav Avraham and Rebbetzin Dina would join the Yafen family for Pesach. A granddaughter of Rav Yafen recalls, “I must have stolen Rav Shkop’s afikomen, because I remember them taking me into town to buy a present. All these years later, I still remember them debating whether it was proper to go into the store where chometz might be sold. I don’t think we ended up going in.”

And years after that, while Rebbetzin Shkop lived in Yerushalayim, many of her steady visitors were the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of her travel companions of long ago, and the Yeshivas Mir family. Her American friends never forgot her. They’d stop in when visiting Eretz Yisrael, and would send their granddaughters attending seminary and grandsons learning in yeshivah to visit regularly.

On American Shores

When the Shkops reached America, they settled in Brooklyn. Soon after, they celebrated the engagement of Rav Avraham’s sister Chaya to Rav Zelig Epstein ztz”l, who eventually opened up the American branch of Yeshivas Shaar HaTorah, Grodno, in Queens, New York. (Decades later, their son, Rav Kalman shlita and his sister, Elka, took care of Rav Avraham and Rebbetzin Shkop with care and devotion for many years, both while they lived in New York and then from afar.)

Soon after their arrival, the young Rebbetzin Shkop began teaching in the Bais Yaakov elementary school. She loved her class, and even moved up with the same group of girls from fourth, to fifth, and all the way until ninth grade. Reb Avraham was a renowned teacher, who taught and impacted hundreds of students in various high schools, seminaries, and Stern College. The Shkops welcomed their students into their home, and they became the children the couple never had.

Toward the end of Rebbetzin Shkop’s life, a young woman visited her and asked for a brachah for children. Rebbetzin Shkop blessed her warmly, but then fell into a deep silence. The young woman waited nervously; Rebbetzin Shkop finally broke the stillness. “Just remember,” she said, “that whatever Hashem decides, it’s for our good.” She looked at the woman, each word heavy with sincerity. “Me, I never had tainos.”

Dr. Saralie Faivelson, whose father, Rabbi Baruch Faivelson, was one of the few Americans who learned in the Mir from 1935 to 1938, has many fond memories of the Shkops. “We used to bring them mishloach manos. Our families were very close.”

When Rav Avraham passed away almost 20 years ago, leaving his beloved rebbetzin behind to mourn his loss, Saralie was apprehensive. Rebbetzin Shkop’s husband was her entire world. How would she go on?

She found the Rebbetzin heartbroken, but not broken. Already in her eighties, living alone in Boro Park, Rebbetzin Shkop started giving a parshah shiur for women: she called them “young ladies in their sixties and seventies.” She taught with contagious energy and enthusiasm. “Sarah Leah,” she’d exclaim to Saralie, “it is such an exciting parshah this week!”

“Yosef Hatzaddik,” Sarelie remembers. “She’d get so excited by Yosef Hatzaddik…. She was always learning. After moving to Eretz Yisrael, she joked to me, ‘I have so many visitors, I don’t have time to learn any more!’ ”

She was a woman undeterred by obstacles. Nazis, visas, lack of close family, none of it stopped her from following her dreams. So now, widowed and alone, she had one last dream to follow: to live in Eretz Yisrael. At the age of 90, Rebbetzin Shkop picked herself up, bade life in Brooklyn goodbye, and moved to Eretz Yisrael.

Circle of Friends

Rebbetzin Shkop planned to join several friends at a specific retirement home in Yerushalayim. The accommodations weren’t ready, and, unwilling to delay her move, Rebbetzin Shkop moved into Neveh Simcha in Mattersdorf temporarily. When her room was finally ready, a nurse transferred her medical files, commenting that Rebbetzin Shkop must have been dissatisfied with the care she received in Neveh Simcha if she wanted to leave after such a short stay.

Rebbetzin Shkop canceled her transfer request. Notwithstanding all her reasons for the transfer — friends, activities, and shiurim — if the staff in Neveh Simcha would be hurt by her leaving, it was no longer up for discussion.

Within her new home, Rebbetzin Shkop began entertaining a steady stream of visitors, who came for a few minutes of chizuk, learning, and, of course, to make a brachah. That stream didn’t stop for over 12 years, until her final days on this earth. Every visitor had the same experience: the warmth of a grandmother, the fire of Torah, and the self-deprecating humor that put everyone at ease.

Her small kitchenette was always stocked with cookies, sodas, and candies, plastic cups and napkins, ready and waiting for her visitors to arrive. “Make a brachah,” she’d say softly. Once all her guests were seated and fed, she’d say fervently, “Let’s learn a pasuk!”

She’d ask the little cheder boys what they’d learned that day, and she loved to sing, her old and young visitors swaying back and forth in song. Seminary girls would visit on Shabbos, weaving intricate harmonies through Rebbetzin Shkop’s favorite songs: “Achas Sha’alti” and “Ribon Ha’Olamim.”

Rebbetzin Weinstein, the daughter of Rav Dovid Zaritzky, was like a daughter to Rebbetzin Shkop, visiting her every single day. Once, she bought Rebbetzin Shkop five bottles of soda, yet a few days later the cupboard was empty. She asked the nurse how it had finished so quickly. The nurse answered, “Do you have any idea how many people come to visit Rebbetzin Shkop every single day?”

A seminary girl who grew close to Rebbetzin Shkop during her year in Eretz Yisrael offered her a ride to Kever Rochel late at night. Rebbetzin Shkop was so excited, she practically ran to the front desk to inform them she was going out. Once settled in the car, she looked out at Rechov Sorotzkin, at the lights twinkling from the homes, the streets filled with men, women, families, and her eyes grew wide.

“Look, Klal Yisrael is alive,” she whispered.

Until well into her nineties, Rebbetzin Shkop fasted taanis beha”b. At the age of 99, she confided in a young rav, “This will be my first Rosh Chodesh Elul not fasting. Elul is my month,” she added. Her birthday was 2 Elul.

Every Yom Tov and Shabbos was a new opportunity for kevod Shamayim. The Rebbetzin bought her own lulav and esrog, lit her own menorah, cleaned for Pesach, stocked up on kosher l’Pesach cookies for her guests, and clapped and sang to “Rabi Shimon bar Yochai.”

Learning and Living

“Around one year ago, when Rebbetzin Shkop was 101, she asked me if we could learn together,” Rebbetzin Weinstein remembers. “I opened the Chumash to parshas Va’eschanan and began to read the pasuk. Rebbetzin Shkop finished the pasuk for me and then proceeded to recite the Rashis from memory.”

Rebbetzin Shkop learned every single day: Chumash, Pirkei Avos, Mishlei. Each Tuesday morning, in her room in Neveh Simcha, she hosted a learning group comprised of distinguished women, among them Rebbetzin Rivka Ezrachi and Rebbetzin Mina Shmuelevitz. Afterward, they’d say Tehillim together. In his hesped, Rav Yitzchak Ezrachi, Rosh Yeshivas Mir, said that on a Tuesday when his wife couldn’t join Rebbetzin Dina, the mood in his home was different.

Rebbetzin Shmuelevitz remembers that when Rebbetzin Shkop was hospitalized, toward the end, she was awake all night in discomfort. Finally, as the sun broke through the night sky, Rebbetzin Shmulevitz leaned over Rebbetzin Shkop.

“Try to get some sleep,” she urged her. “You were awake all night.”

Rebbetzin Shkop’s eyes registered alarm. “But if I was up all night, then you must have been, too!”

Rebbetzin Weinstein described her as a skilled conversationalist, helped by her mastery of English, Yiddish, Hebrew, and Russian, and her determination to connect with everyone.

“She got satisfaction from giving and thinking of other people,” Rebbetzin Shmuelevitz says. “She remembered to ask about things that people had shared with her, whether it was an ill family member, a school event, or a previous conversation.”

Rebbetzin Shkop’s tone and demeanor were always pleasant. She never complained, never spoke of loneliness or buried dreams. She found joy in her life, her guests, her learning, even in the food in the nursing home. She swayed back and forth, singing and humming as she learned, peace and serenity flowing out, filling the small room she occupied.

“She came to Eretz Yisrael alone, but she was never alone,” Rebbetzin Rivka Ezrachi reflects. “People loved her, they were drawn to her. When she was in the hospital at 100 years old, the staff just couldn’t get over her. The nurse said, ‘How are you like this at your age?’

“Rebbetzin Shkop quipped, ‘You have to ask someone older than me.’ ”

Someone who stayed overnight in Rebbetzin Shkop’s room heard her talking to Hashem. “Whatever You do is good, I thank You so much.”

Rebbetzin Shulamis Kaminetzky, daughter of Rav Dovid Lifshitz, escaped Europe on the same boat as Rebbetzin Shkop all those years before. “She went through so much, so many bumps in the road,” she says of the regal woman she first met when she was just six years old. “Yet she only saw good. All she wanted was to be mechabed people, to give to people.”

The woman who lost her entire world, her whole family wiped from existence, the woman who never had children, whose husband passed away and left her alone. She would constantly look up to the heavens and say, “M’dankt dem Eibeshten. M’dankt — who can thank You enough and who can praise You enough.”

It wasn’t that the pain of her past had faded. On the contrary, as recently as two years ago, Rebbetzin Shkop questioned whether perhaps her sister Tybele was still alive. Maybe she had somehow made it safely to England, and had been living there all these years…?

But looking at her stream of visitors, at the web of kindness and chesed that surrounded her, she’d grow overwhelmed. “What did I do to deserve such kindness?” she’d say. “I need to earn this!” And when people would ask her for brachos, she’d blush. “They’re making a mistake,” she’d say. “Who am I?” But then she’d agree that she had zechus avos and was an eishes talmid chacham, and would gently bestow blessings.

She waved away compliments with her hand, but dispensed them generously. When couples came together to visit, she would turn to the husband, “Look how nice your wife looks!” she’d say. She’d compliment mothers on their children’s Yom Tov clothing. The neighborhood girls knew that if they came in wearing a pretty headband or a new dress, she would notice and say, “You look beautiful and tzniyusdig,” emphasizing that the two go hand in hand.

Rebbetzin Gertner was already middle aged when she met Rebbetzin Shkop, but the connection was instantaneous. “She was so much more than I can explain,” she says. “We say, ‘Elokai, neshamah she’nasata bi, tehorah hi…’ Rebbetzin Shkop returned her neshamah purer than when she received it! She lived in America for 60 years, yet it was as if she had just been plucked out of the holy streets of Grodno.”

So close were they that Rebbetzin Shkop, always wary of being a burden, was perplexed. “Why do you care for me like this?” she asked.

Mrs. Gertner explained that her own parents had passed away when she was just a child. “I feel as if Hashem put you into my life so I can fulfill the mitzvah of kibbud eim,” she said.

And Rebbetzin Shkop, bereft of certain mitzvos herself, understood.

The last thing Rebbetzin Shkop said to Rebbetzin Gertner, in the moments before she passed away, was “A dank.”

When a Jewish woman stands before her Shabbos candles, her tefillos are ripe with her deepest longings. Women entreat Hashem on behalf of their husband, children, parents.

Rebbetzin Shkop would bentsh licht and recite “Sheyibaneh Beis Hamikdash,” murmuring the words “kavod Shamayim” several times. And then, right before she turned away from the flames, she’d say, “I’ll do my best, Eibeshter. I’ll do my best.”

L’illui nishmas Dina bas Rav Aryeh Leib

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 609)