Linked to a Lost World  

It’s fitting that Rav Mandelbaum lives in the Zichron Meir neighborhood, which was established in 1934 by a wealthy Chortkover chassid by the name of Rav Chaim Yaakov Halperin in tribute to Rav Meir Shapiro of Lublin.

This is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Bnei Brak, and one of several that had been funded by Rav Halperin. Situated in close proximity to both the Gerrer beis medrash and the Ponevezh yeshivah, it was home to numerous illustrious personalities, including the Chazon Ish and Rav Shmuel Wosner, the latter having served as the neighborhood rav for nearly 70 years where he established the Israeli version of Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin, bearing the same name as the famed yeshivah where he studied in his youth.

The overflowing, packed shelves lining Rav Dovid Mandelbaum’s study aren’t really a surprise. Reb Dovid has spent decades publishing seforim of many of the greatest Torah leaders of prewar Polish Jewry, and authoring many of his own volumes, including an edited edition of Talmud Yerushalmi, Daf al HaDaf on various masechtos in Shas, and other volumes.

Reb Dovid is warm and friendly, but while he’s a tremendously accomplished talmid chacham, I clarify at the outset of our conversation that I’m actually not a talmid chacham at all, but rather am here to discuss another facet of his vast literary output — the many history books and biographical works that he’s researched and authored about those same prewar Polish Torah giants.