Venerable individuals still among us share their recollections of personal encounters with yesteryear's giants
Lakewood, New Jersey
The Chofetz Chaim, Rav Elchonon Wasserman, Rav Boruch Ber… and the King of Denmark? As the senior-most interviewee that we spoke to for this series, Rabbi Menashe Winkler’s story is as unusual as it is impressive. Born in Copenhagen in the months that followed World War I, he carried a unique status as one of the few yeshivah students in Eastern Europe who hailed from the Nordic region.
Menashe Tzvi’s father, Rabbi Michoel Shalom Winkler, served as rav of Copenhagen’s Machsikei Hadas community — a small separatist community formed in response to the local embrace of more modern trends. Though the community did not have a proper yeshivah, they hired Rav Nosson Zvi Knopelmacher, a top student at the Pressburg Yeshivah, to teach the older children.
In the fall of 1931, Menashe Tzvi’s father traveled to the United States to fundraise. There he grew ill, and was niftar in New York.
Rabbi Winkler recalls his bar mitzvah as a somber affair in the wake of his father’s recent passing. Not long after, Reb Yitzchok Grozalsky, an emissary of the Radin Yeshivah, arrived in Denmark to raise funds. When he discovered the young Winkler yasom, he suggested to Esther Winkler that her son be sent to learn in Radin. He assured her that he’d assume full responsibility for his needs there. Mrs. Winkler hailed from the famed machnisei orchim Leitner family of Marienbad, and was aware of the importance of a proper Torah education. She readily agreed.
Create a free account to keep reading.
