Rabbi Who Saw Hitler, Survived to Celebrate With Granddaughter

By COLlive reporter

A festive Melava Malka to mark the Sheva Brachos for Mendel Wilansky of Portland, Maine and Leah Lazar, daughter of the Head Shliach and Chief Rabbi of Russia, Rabbi Berel Lazar, was held on a boat on the Moscow River on Motzei Shabbos.

The lavish seudah was followed by joyous music and spirited dancing, accompanied by singer Benny Friedman.

The sight of hundreds of Chassidic Jews joyously and publically celebrating the beginning of a new Jewish home, in Moscow, Russia, was an emotional one for Rabbi Moshe Lazar, a Holocaust survivor who is a Senior Shliach in Milan, Italy, father of Rabbi Berel Lazar and grandfather of the Kallah.

Rabbi Lazar shared his thoughts about what the evening portrayed about the survival of the Jewish people against all odds, with Rabbi Kalman Weinfeld, a guest at the event.

Rabbi Lazar shared that when he was 4 years old, he saw Adolf Hitler, yemach shemo, twice.

“Now, tonight, I see ‘Techiyas Hameisim,'” Rabbi Lazar said.

“After the communists, and everything we went through, what we are seeing here today, it’s not just a miracle, it’s much more than that – it’s the wonders of G-d!

“Hashem is showing us, that if we do what is right, and strengthen our Judaism, everything will turn over to the good,” he said.

Video: Rabbi Moshe Lazar