Rav Meir Simcha was a dominating presence at rabbinical conferences in the waning years of czarist rule
While Mark Twain was on a trip to London in 1897, a New York newspaper reported that he had died. Upon hearing the news, the legendary writer responded, “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” Some two decades later, the reports of a gadol hador’s death were similarly exaggerated.
The overthrow of the czar and the subsequent seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in 1917 plunged the former Russian Empire into a bloody civil war. The crossfire claimed countless Jewish victims; the toll may have even reached six figures. During the chaotic days of 1919, the Yiddish newspaper Haynt reported that a Russian bullet had taken one of the gedolei Yisrael — Rav Meir Simcha HaKohein of Dvinsk, known by the title of his magnum opus, the sefer Ohr Sameiach.
Rav Meir Simcha was the beloved rav of the non-chassidic community of Dvinsk for nearly four decades, alongside the Rogatchover Gaon — Rav Yosef Rosen — who headed the local chassidic community. Rav Meir Simcha was a dominating presence at rabbinical conferences in the waning years of czarist rule.
The tragic report was picked up by newspapers worldwide, and Jewish communities as far away as Yerushalayim mourned the terrible loss. With the fog of war impeding clear and consistent communication, it took a couple of months to clarify that Rav Meir Simcha was alive and well. Still healthy and strong at the helm of the Dvinsk rabbinate, he’d continue leading Klal Yisrael until his passing at a ripe old age in 1926.
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