Rabbi Yisroel Zev Gustman — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

Rabbi Yisroel Zev Gustman (1906-1991) was the last dayan (judge according to the Jewish Law) in Vilna during the period of World War Two. After the war, he migrated to America. In 1971, he immigrated to Israel and established Yeshivat Netzah Yisrael in Rehavia, Jerusalem. A few of his teaching sessions on tractates from the Mishna were published in Contrasei Shiurim (Pamphlets of Lessons).

Rabbi Gustman was born in Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire) in 1906. As a youth his brilliance shone through and he learnt together with Rabbi Haim Shmuelevitz in Grodno. He also learnt with Rabbi Shimon Shkop at the Yeshiva of Grodno. When he was 21 he became engaged to the daughter of Rabbi Meir Bassan, who was the head of the Yeshivat Ramailis in Vilna and a member of the rabbinical court of Rabbi Haim Ozer Grodzinski, the greatest rabbi in Vilna at the time. In the interim between his engagement and marriage, Rabbi Bassan passed away and Rabbi Gustman was chosen to take his rabbinical position and become a member of the rabbinical court despite his youth. He was also a rabbi/ teacher at Yeshivat Ramailis.

After the Nazis arrived in Vilna during the war, they tortured the rabbis including Rabbi Gustman, who lost a lot of blood and was unconscious for a few days. "One day I was lying in a heap of dead bodies and I thought I was already one of the dead. I suddenly noticed that I was the only one moving and realized that I was still alive." He shaved off his beard and returned to the ghetto. During the Aktions, he and other rabbis warned the head of the Judenrat, Jacob Gens, that according to Jewish law, it is forbidden to hand Jews over to the authorities. At some stage, he told all the Jews who were able to do so, to flee the ghetto, as he did. His young son, Meir, was snatched from his arms during one of the children's Aktions but Rabbi Gustman, his wife and daughter, survived. Years later he said that the most humiliating point in his life was the moment when they snatched his son from his arms.

After the war he returned to Vilna where he took care of the Jewish remnant, organized religious affairs and dealt with the difficult problems of marriage and the liberation of agunot (married Jewish women whose husbands' whereabouts were unknown). About a year after the end of the war he was warned by a Jewish Communist commissar that he would be sent to Siberia; he fled to France, hoping to get to Israel, however, he could not get a certificate. Rabbi Eliezer Silver and other Agudat Yisrael activists in France managed to get him onto an American army boat bound for home. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein mediated and he was appointed head of Yeshivat Tomchei Temimim in New York. Four years later he set up Yeshivat Netzah Yisrael-Vilna Ramailis in memory of his yeshiva in Vilna.

In 1971, he made aliyah to Israel. Taking the advice of the Rabbi of Chebin, he established his yeshiva in Rehavia, Jerusalem, in an historic building known as Bet Havatzelet (Lily House). His teaching sessions were very exhaustive: he would give an intensive lesson on Mondays that lasted for four hours. Only his students and guests who had received explicit permission from him were allowed to attend. On Thursdays he would teach a session for working people in Yiddish; he would make a point of finishing the session after two hours to enable the people to return to work. He published the summaries of those sessions in a series of books entitled Contrasei Shiurim (Pamphlets of Lessons). A small community of learned scholars assembled around his yeshiva including Rabbi Eliezer Shapira, a member of the Rabbinical High Court as well as academics such as Professor Menahem Elon and Professor Yisrael Aumann.

Rabbi Gustman passed away in 1991 and was buried at the Mount of Olives. His only daughter is married to Rabbi Michel Brinker, who succeeded him as head of Yeshivat Netzah Yisrael.

From: Wikipedia