Hershel Gottdiener makes sure all his good deeds remain under the radar

Photos: Jeff Zorabedian, Personal archives

He raises funds for Jews in dire straits anywhere in the world, helps move incarcerated individuals out of backwater third-world prisons, and even does what it takes to get a bochur into yeshivah. But you won’t be reading about Hershel Gottdiener on any blog or frum website — because he makes sure all those good deeds remain under the radar

Hershel has plenty of friends, to be sure, although you might not have heard of him unless you happen to be his neighbor in Monsey, or if you’ve been on the receiving end of his unconditional chesed and largesse. That’s because Hershel’s good deeds are mostly under the radar, and they involve things like bailing Jews out of third-world prisons and secretly helping impoverished families hold onto their homes or marry off their children.

“Hershel has the craziest stories,” I was told. “See how much you can get out of him, how much he’s willing to share.”

Hershel didn’t disappoint, although he did seem disconcerted by the presence of the photographer. “We’re taking pictures?” he asks incredulously when we meet in his Monsey home. “Why pictures?” When I explain that this is protocol, he shrugs. “Okay. But this is not about me, it’s about inspiring others to do chesed. Whatever it takes to accomplish that, we’ll do it.”

Hershel, 43, grew up in Boro Park, the oldest of ten children, in what he describes as “a house full of chesed. Whenever my father saw someone who seemed down and out, he would approach him and see what he could do to help. If finances were the issue, my father would jump up and start collecting money for him.”

Hershel remembers a time when his father, a founding member of Rav Moshe Wolfson’s Emunas Yisroel and head of its kimcha d’Pischa initiative, was working to collect money for a certain member of the community whose identity was a secret. But Hershel, precocious as he was, discovered that it was actually a wealthy member of the community. The man had fallen upon hard times and Hershel’s father, Reb Shlomo Gottdiener — loath to watch someone undergo the shame of having to sell off his assets — worked to raise the funds necessary to help him.

Although the Gottdieners are officially Belzer chassidim, Hershel attended yeshivah in New Square, where he developed a close relationship with the Skverer Rebbe. Hershel was just a teenager then, but, as time would tell, the Rebbe recognized his potential to help the klal even at his young age.

Hershel married at 20, joined the chassidishe kollel in the Mirrer Yeshiva of Brooklyn, and a year later, was blessed with a baby boy. Now, laden with the responsibility to support a wife and child, Hershel set out to found a business.

“I began a car business, leasing, renting, and selling,” he says, but a call from the Skverer Rebbe made it clear that financial success wouldn’t seal itself as Hershel’s salient preoccupation. “The Skverer Rebbe called me and asked me to get involved in a certain communal issue,” Hershel says. The details of the specific incident are less relevant than the message that came with them. “Di bist mein ambassador,” the Rebbe told Hershel. “You are my ambassador.”

“The Rebbe told me this a few times,” Hershel recalls. The Skverer Rebbe never articulated why he chose Hershel of all his talmidim, but it seems clear that he perceived Hershel to be one who was always there to help, no matter what the problem was. Hershel has another valuable quality — the fearlessness to make a cold phone call. “The worst that can happen is that you’ll get a no,” is his perspective.

Hershel refers to the tasks assigned by the Skverer Rebbe as “missions,” some of which were more daring than others: They could be as clandestine as looking for a missing person or as straightforward as combing the various communities in search of quality esrogim when there was a shortage in New Square.

Hershel successfully completed the Rebbe’s assignments but, internally, this sparked a sense of inception rather than finality. Hershel now knew that his would be a life dedicated to helping others in any and every way that he could.

Hershel would become the ambassador of the people.

“People have pointed out that my beard has many white hairs, but look at my peyos, there’s no white at all,” he says of the strange trichological phenomenon — but Hershel sees significance in it, in line with a teaching of the Chasam Sofer. “The Chasam Sofer writes that Hashem gives a white beard to people who have what to offer. It gives off a distinguished impression and increases their ability to influence.” Like Rabi Elazar ben Azarya, whose beard turned wholly white at age 18, perhaps those destined to make critical differences in Klal Yisrael merit an appearance that reflects their mission rather than their age.