Baba's Organization and Yeshiva Meah Shearim

The Zion Dov Ber Torah Fund

So Esther Feigel had to flee Jerusalem with her husband, spent time in a transit camp in Alexandria Egypt and came to Brooklyn, New York with her husband and newborn baby girl, Pearl. Within a few years of her arrival in New York, Esther, not forgetting the words of the Rabbi in Jerusalem, started to raise funds and began to build an organization to support Yeshiva Meah Shearim in Meah Shearim, Jerusalem. What led her to do this? Experiences as a young religious girl growing up in Jerusalem with her connections and dedication to Yeshiva Meah Shearim where her brother David had studied as a child. There the rabbi told her not to forget the Yeshiva and this had a great impact on her. She also had great passion and initiative. And then she experienced the death of her son Beryl.. - all this led her to start raising funds for Yeshiva Meah Shearim. The Yeshiva was founded in 1883 in Meah Shearim, Jerusalem, and she started her organization in 1927, the year after her daughter Chanie, my mother was born.

Either in 1927 or later on she named her organization:

The organization was named either after Beryl (Dov Ber) and/or after David (David Ber) - 2 sons that died as children. I remember that she combined their names to create the name of the organization, or perhaps it was named after Beryl (Dov Ber), who died before 1927 when she started the organization.

She headed the organization for 60+ years, expanded the Yeshiva in many ways including building a new building and purchasing a new van. This helped the hundreds of students who studied there. Hundreds of children, many of them orphans, were provided for with all their needs. She spoke on WEVD in her 15-minute weekly radio program for 40 years on behalf of the yeshiva. She organized yearly banquets and bazaars to raise money. For many years she had an office front on Troy Avenue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn where she did the organization's correspondence and bookkeeping, often with help of volunteers, including myself. ;-). She continued to work tirelessly year after year until her death at 92 in 1988, when she could barely walk to the office but with her walker walked there anyway.

800 children receive a Torah education at the Yeshiva Meah Shearim. At Yeshiva Bachurim, there are 100 older students, together with an expanded Kollel body. There could be more students today. There was (and may still be) a Free Kitchen and support provided for the aged rabbis that sit and learn at the Yeshiva. In addition to the sums contributed by her organization to the general functions of the Yeshiva, building the new building Yeshiva Bochurim, and purchasing vans for the Yeshiva, for example in the 1980's they had also supplied two additional Sefer Torahs, additional sforim (books) for the library, and also instituted major repairs.

The following is an excerpt from an article 20+ years ago by Jerry Lisker in The Jewish Press:

"... Mrs. Leibowitz's Zion Dov Ber Torah Fund has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the orphaned and homeless children of Jerusalem. "For many children, the yeshiva is the only home they know", Mrs. Leibowitz said. "It is where they live and learn the traditions of Judaism. Many have gone on to be scholars and students." ... With funds she has raised, the yeshiva has grown. Monies are used to provide additions to the structure, for the purchase of teaching and medical materials and for buses, food and religious articles. Each child also receives a gift each year at Chanukah."

Visiting Israel after 30 years

In 1949, after the founding of the state of Israel, Esther Feigel traveled to Jerusalem for the first time in 30 years, to visit the Yeshiva. How exciting that must have been! After 30 years she would see her family - her mother and sister and other relatives whom she hadn't seen in 30 years..!.

I found a letter written by the organizers of the send-off luncheon sent to the members of The Zion Dov Ber Torah Fund.

An excerpt from the letter -

"... Our president came from her birth-place, Jerusalem, many years ago and has been giving her time and efforts unselfishly for the cause of the Jewish people in our homeland ever since. She is the organizer of the Zion Dov Ber Torah Fund, and for twenty two years she has been the President of this organization, dedicated to the support of the great Yeshiva Mea Shearim and Orphan Home, in existence almost one hundred years.

Now, after all this time, we have decided that our President should go back to her native land to try to make provisions for the great and urgent demands placed on this institution by the emigrants from war-torn Europe. She will then be in a better position to report the situation there."

From one of the Annual Dinner (Banquet) souvenir journals -
".. After the war she stood in front of the Yeshiva building, just as she had stood before it 30 years earlier, but finding it virtually destroyed by war. No table, no chair, no lectern or bench was to be found. Then lo and behold, the new furniture, which she had immediately provided, was all in place.

The hundreds of students stand up and bless her for the food packages she sent during the war, when the Jews of Jerusalem almost died of hunger..."

After 1949 Esther visited Israel almost every year, bringing to the Yeshiva money raised from her fundraising work in the US for the Zion Dov Ber Torah Fund. On return to the US she'd bring back news and experiences of the Yeshiva that she would speak about on her WEVD weekly radio programs. As she got older, she'd go less frequently, more like every 2 or 3 years.

WEVD Radio Program

For 40 years Esther Leibowitz spoke on WEVD, on a 15-minute weekly radio program where she spoke in Yiddish about the Yeshiva and The Zion Dov Ber Torah Fund, Torah and Jewish issues.

If you donated money, as I did at times, you could hear your name announced on the radio. So perhaps I've already had my 15 minutes of fame, as Andy Warhol would say. I'd like to get copies of some of her broadcasts from WEVD (I understand that YIVO has them now). I did get e-mail from someone at WEVD who told me he had old broadcasts of hers and they were very interesting.

I remember her radio program being on fridays, but as I look through her materials I see that there were periods of time that it aired on mondays and tuesdays. Looking at the Annual Souvenir Journal from the 54th Anniversary Dinner, in 1980 the program aired on Tuesdays at 9:15 AM.

Banquets and Bazaars

Every year Esther Leiobowitz would organize an annual fundraising banquet in a Manhattan hotel. with live music, and appetizers on trays would be served as well as a full meal. Esther Feigel would speak about the Yeshiva, and there'd be] a guest of honor who would speak.

In the back of her office on Troy Avenue in Brooklyn, all sorts of second-hand and new goods were stored and would be sold at the next fundraising bazaar. I remember going to one as a child, and I think it was during one of the blackouts in New York City.

Yeshiva Meah Shearim - The Great Yeshiva

Esther Feigel standing inside Yeshiva Meah Shearim, 1973.

Children eating in Yeshiva dining room, Esther Leibowitz standing in middle.

The Zion Dov Ber Torah Fund purchased a number of vans for the Yeshiva.

Esther Leibowitz with boys from Yeshiva Meah Shearim, circa 1970.

Plaque on Yeshiva wall honoring Esther Feigel Leibowitz