By COLlive reporter
Vyacheslav Kork, a businessman in Ukraine who has openly admired the Jewish nation, wished to use his artistic talent to paint two leading rabbis.
The ones that he chose are two notable Chabad Shluchim in the country: Chief Rabbi of Odessa Avraham Wolff and Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky, Chief Rabbi of Dnipro (formerly Dnipropetrovsk).
Kork, who owns several hotels and is also a singer, Googled both of the rabbis names and got to work on the painting which he sized to be taller than the average height of a person.
But when he showed the result of his tedious work, he discovered that he has mistaken. While the portrait of Rabbi Wolff was accurate, the second wasn’t who he intended.
The Rabbi Kamenetsky whom he depicted was Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky, the 96-year-old Rosh Yeshiva of the Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia, and one of the most widely known living Litvish gedolim outside of Israel.
Kork presented both paintings to Rabbi Wolff who immediately noticed the error.
What was the artist’s reaction to the mistake? Rabbi Wolff says he just laughed.
Nice paintings !!!
שמואל א׳ ושמואל ב׳
😄
A friend of mine told me that a few years ago, as he was standing in the cashier line in the Boro Park collel store, he overheard a litvishe looking woman excitingly telling her husband that she found matzoh with Reb Shmuel Kamenitzky ‘s hechsher !
He has a Futerfas in jus ancestry
He did a super amazing job on Rabbi Avremi Wolf.