Reb Dovid Dryan z”l’s name remains largely unknown
T
his week, a ceremony was held in Gateshead, England, to dedicate 20 new homes, primarily for kollel avreichim, in memory of Rabbi Dovid Dryan z”l. While Gateshead itself enjoys widespread fame in today’s Torah landscape — with thousands of talmidei chachamim and marbitzei Torah crediting their accomplishments to the years they spent in the legendary Gateshead Yeshivah — Reb Dovid Dryan’s name remains largely unknown. Yet those who know Gateshead’s history are aware that its success is in large part due to his efforts.
Some 100 years ago, Reb Dovid, a child of Radin, arrived in Gateshead to take up a position as the shochet. Soon afterward, he and a core group of talmidim established a small yeshivah, in defiance of all opposition. It was this small chaburah that ultimately blossomed into the Gateshead Yeshivah.
Reb Dovid himself was not blessed with children, but generations of yeshivah students are all, in a sense, his spiritual children.
When a student in the middle school of Far Rockaway’s Darchei Torah lost his father, all his classmates and peers felt the loss. Many of the boys went to be menachem avel, and the rebbeim discussed an appropriate initiative l’illui nishmas their beloved talmid’s father.
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