“In his presence, you felt his concern and his warmth toward every single Jew no matter what”
Fortunately, the Chelkas Yaakov was able to flee to Antwerp, Belgium, and from there to France, where he served for a short time as the rav in Lens. The following year, in 1934, he was appointed the av beis din of Agudas Achim in Zurich, which was predominantly a community of Eastern European émigrés.
Rav Shaul was just a year old at the time and certainly couldn’t appreciate the hashgachah by which he and his family were saved from the Nazi claws. But later, as a leader of the Zurich community and beyond, he was grateful for the chain of events that was actually a catalyst for saving the family.
While World War II was raging in Europe, Rav Shaul spent his childhood years in Switzerland, then continued on to Yeshivas Mesivta in London, and later to Chevron and Belz in Jerusalem — not exactly intersecting yeshivos, but the combination of both litvish and chassidic styles meant he had a common language with the entire spectrum of European chareidi Jewry.
After his marriage, he moved to Bnei Brak, where he learned in Kollel Chazon Ish. In 1965, at the behest of his father, he established Kollel Chelkas Yaakov (Breisch), a halachah kollel whose goal was to train avreichim to be poskim. Rav Shaul returned to Zurich in 1972 to help his father, who had fallen ill, in the rabbanus, all the while continuing to direct Kollel Chelkas Yaakov and carry its financial burden.
Create a free account to keep reading.
