Hillel Van der Veen, 71, OBM

Hillel van der Veen, a deeply devoted family man, loving father, provider par excellence, ba’al tzedaka and active local and global community participant, passed away last week in Jerusalem at the age of 71.

Van der Veen and his family made aliyah from Johannesburg, South Africa, to the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem in 1996, then moved to Los Angeles, then on to Tsfat in 2009.

Known for his diligence and determination in all that he took on, including a lead executive role that helped the kibbutz-based Shamir optical company grow into a major international force in the industry, van der Veen, though, was above all, a dedicated religious man and kind and generous Jew who taught his children innumerable lessons, including to respect and connect with everyone “no matter what their station in life,” said daughter Shira.

The comments came when Shira and other family members took a moment after shiva ended on Tuesday to reflect on the many qualities they cherished about van der Veen, the father and husband. His greatest gift of all was an undying, dependable and consistent love he showered on the family, engendering the feeling, said daughter Hayley, of “always being there.” Whether in person or taking a phone call from a family member in the middle of a board meeting, she said, “family was a priority.”

Whether initiating a fundraiser for a tennis court and pool for the Chabad school in South Africa that was the family’s on-ramp to Chabad or helping out the local emissary or other organizations in global ports where business took him, van der Veen, according to family and friends, was always on the giving end.

“In my 20 years or so of knowing him and staying in touch even when he traveled, everywhere he went he would interest himself in what was going on in that place, especially the Jewish aspects of the place and the needs of the local shliach [Chabad emissary] along with non-Chabad organizations,” said Rabbi Gavriel Marzel, director of the Chabad House and Tzemach Tzedek Synagogue in the Old City of Tsfat where van der Veen lived and was a shul member in his early and later years in Tsfat.

“Not knowing I only had an 8th grade Yiddisher cheder level English ability, he would share all kinds of business and political ideas connected to the different countries he traveled to that I barely understood,” Marzel jested. “Over time, our conversations shifted more to halachic and Jewish issues. It got to the point where I could detect his deep devotion to the Abishter in the way he davened and in his strict observance of the kashrus laws.”

He applied his significant business and entrepreneurial skills to helping rabbis write and publish seforim, including a unique full color tabletop volume authored by Tsfat contemporary Chaim Clorfene A”H, on the dimensions and service of the Third Temple.

A friend and advisor to many known for his quick and wry humor, he once joked with a budding local entrepreneur and others at an informal confab that he had gotten his money from his father, skipping only a few beats before telling the temporarily disappointed and surprised group: “That is, my Father in Heaven.”

A particularly close friend who was at van der Veen’s side much of the time during his last days, Pinchas Eliyahu Sederowsky, spoke of their friendship at a kiddush-farbrengen honoring van der Veen held at the Tzemach Tzedek Synagogue on the Shabbos immediately following his death. “He was a major mensch,” an emotional Sederowsky told the gathering. “He was a dear friend of mine and – more importantly – I was a friend of his. I’m really going to miss him.”

At the gravesite on the day of the burial, surrounded by a multitude of community members from every echelon along with an array of Chabad and non-Chabad rabbanim – all of whom van der Veen had close relationships with — Marzel stepped up to bid him a final farewell while others who could have expressed much stepped back to let the words from the local shliach flow.
“I think they held much in their hearts that was beyond expression and knew of the Chabad custom not to say hespedim [eulogies],” said Marzel about the group that included leadership figures from the Sanz, Chernobyl, Mekarev and Chortkov Chassidic communities of Tsfat.

In his parting words, he conjured up two timely references from holy sources containing derivations of the name Hillel: “Today’s day of Tehillim, day 28, begins with the words ‘Haleluya Halilu…’ and today’s Tanya portion speaks of ‘Hillel the Elder.’”

The service was capped off with the traditional prayer Kel Malei Rachamin (Oh G-d, full of compassion…) chanted soulfully by chazan and Rabbi Zalman Traxler, founder with his wife, Chana, of Tsfat’s Artist Quarter Minyan congregation where van der Veen was also closely connected.

Van der Veen is survived by devoted wife Shimonit, two loving daughters, Dr. Hayley Lazaroff and Mrs. Shira Zajfen and six grandchildren. He was buried in his home city of Tsfat last Wednesday next to his mother who passed away only about a year before.

Baruch Dayan Ha’emes – Hillel ben Chaim.

–Yehuda Sugar