BDE: Rabbi Menashe Tzvi Winkler ZT"L

Livestream of Levaya on LNN 4:30 pm

Matzav.com - It is with great sadness that Matzav.com reports the passing of Rabbi Menashe Tzvi Winkler. He was 102 years old. Reb Menashe Tzvi passed away this morning in Lakewood, where he settled over a decade ago, living in Lakewood Commons. The levayah will take place at 4:30 p.m. at the Lakewood Commons Shul, located at 44 Coles Way, in Lakewood, NJ.

Reb Menashe Tzvi grew up in Copenhagen, Denmark, where his father was the rov of Machzikei Hadas. He was one of two children – he had one brother, Efraim – and was named after his two zeides

His father, amazingly, was fifty years old when he got married. A Yerushalmi who had learnt under Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, Reb Menashe Tzvi’s father was a choshuve talmid chochom and community leader who knew Shas, both Talmud Bavli and Yerushalmi, as well as Sifri, Sifra and Tosefta. He was also a member of the Moetzes Gedolai Hatorah.

Reb Menashe Tzvi’s father lived in Germany as a single man. He studied in college and became a Doktor de Philosophe. He wrote his doctorate on arei miklat. It was called “Das Asylrecht Im Judentum” (The Right to Refuge in Judaism). As a community leader, his father was one of the first rabbonim to support the idea of chinuch habanos. He spoke about it at the Knessia Gedolah, trying to convince other leaders to support the idea. Among his many other responsibilities, Reb Menashe Tzvi’s father wrote a column on parshas hashovua for the Israelite, the weekly German-Jewish paper published in Frankfurt-on-Maine.

At the time of Reb Menashe Tzvi’s childhood, there were five thousand Jewish people living in Copenhagen. The kehillah, Machzikei Hadas, had three hundred to four hundred people. His father taught his limudei kodesh and also established a cheder with a rebbi he brought in from Pressburg, Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Knoepfelmacher, who had been one of the best bochurim in the Pressburg Yeshiva. The rebbi taught Reb Menashe Tzvi at home as well from when he was seven years old until he was fourteen. Reb Menashe Tzvi’s parents hired a frum girl to teach him limudei chol twice a week, since they didn’t want to send him to public school. When he reached the fifth grade, however, he had to attend school, which he  did through the eighth grade.

The last time Reb Menashe Tzvi saw his father, he was twelve years old. His father was traveling to America on a mission for Keren Hatorah, the organization of Agudas Yisrael for yeshivos worldwide. His father was an eloquent speaker who spoke a beautiful German. He went to raise money among German Jews in Washington Heights. One Shabbos, while in America, his father had a heart attack. They sent Reb Menashe Tzvi’s mother a telegram saying that he was “hingeshiden,” meaning niftar. Reb Menashe Tzvi was thirteen at that time and his brother was eleven.

When Reb Menashe Tzvi was fourteen years old, his mother allowed him to go to Radin to join the Chofetz Chaim’s yeshiva. Why did she choose Radin? Whenever meshulachim for yeshivos came to Copenhagen, they usually stayed at the Winkler house. When Rav Yitzchok Grozalsky, a big talmid chochom who was a meshulach from the Radin Yeshiva, stayed at their home, he suggested to Reb Menashe Tzvi’s mother that she send him to Radin.

Reb Menashe Tzvi traveled to meet the Chofetz Chaim where he was staying in a village in the middle of a pine tree forest close to Radin. This was three weeks before the Chofetz Chaim was niftar and he was very weak. Reb Menashe Tzvi shook hands with him. He was sitting in a beach chair covered with netting to protect him from the flies. The Chofetz Chaim greeted Reb Menashe Tzvi and bentched him: “Shalom Aleichem. Zei gezunt… Shteigen in lernen…” Reb Hershel Geier, from the town of Kamenitz, was with him. Read rest of article at Matzav