Rav Yisrael Tzvi Weinberg, who passed away this past Succos, left behind the fulfillment of his father-in-law’s last hope: the continuance of a chassidus on the verge of oblivion
W hen Rav Yisrael Tzvi Weinberg a young Torah scholar from Toronto married Gitel the only child of Montreal’s Tolna Rebbe Rav Yochanan Twersky ztz”l he never imagined he’d be the pivotal link in a chain going all the way back to the Maggid of Chernobyl whose eight sons spread chassidus all over Russia and the Ukraine.
Father of the current Tolna Rebbe of Jerusalem Rav Yitzchak Menachem Weinberg shlita and grandfather of Tolna Ashdod Rebbe Rav Amitai Twersky shlita Rav Weinberg passed away last month at age 88. Yet he left behind the fulfillment of his illustrious father-in-law’s hope — the continuance of Tolna chassidus the rich heritage that was on the verge of fading into oblivion.
Who was this rabbi — who grew up in Toronto in the 1930s and ’40s came to Eretz Yisrael as an idealistic moshav rabbi held an influential position in Israel’s Ministry of Religious Affairs was a master talmid chacham and baal chesed with the peyos and up-hat of a typical chassidishe Yid — and who merited seeing five generations of eineklach in Eretz Yisrael and both a son and grandson as rebbes continuing the venerated Tolna line?
When the Tolna Rebbe’s daughter Gitel Twersky was to meet her future husband Yisrael Weinberg back in 1948 she was thrilled to learn that he was a close chassid of Rav Moshe Langner the Strettiner Rebbe of Toronto — a well-known composer of niggunim and the first chassidic rebbe to establish himself in Canada… and her zeide. Her mother — the Tolna Rebbetzin — was after all the Strettiner Rebbe’s daughter.
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