Rabbi Yaakov Holtzman, 87, OBM

By COLlive reporter

Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Holtzman, an elder and dedicated Lubavitcher chossid in Belgium and in recent years in Crown Heights, passed away on Thursday, 4 Elul 5781.

He was 87 and was injured in a car accident.

Rabbi Holtzman was a child survivor of the Holocaust who ended up in a Chabad orphanage in Paris, and this is where he met Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the future Rebbe, following the Second World War.

The Rebbe had come to Paris in 1947 to meet his mother Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson who had escaped from the Soviet Union, and escort her to New York.

During his stay, the Rebbe visited the orphanage and tested the kids on their Torah knowledge, awarding prizes. The 13-year-old Holtzman used the opportunity to ask the Rebbe if he could come to America. A year later this was arranged and he came to Crown Heights and enrolled in the central Yeshiva Tomchei Tmimim Lubavitch.

In 1954, his friendship with the Rebbe and his wife Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson began. That year, the Rebbetzin had gone to Europe for a few weeks and, during her absence, the Rebbe’s meals were prepared by a local cook.

Rabbi Holtzman was selected to pick up the food and serve it to the Rebbe. And then, after the Rebbetzin returned, he continued to help out. For about four years, he filled the role of their handyman – helping them prepare for Pesach and Sukkos.

“This is how their house became his home away from home, so to speak,” his son Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Holtzman told in an interview with JEM’s My Encounter with the Rebbe project.

“Since he had lost his father during the war and his mother lived far away in Europe, the Rebbetzin looked after him,” his son said.

When he started dating, the Rebbetzin told him, “It’s not appropriate that you should go on every date in the same suit,” and she gave him one of the Rebbe’s old suits to wear, so that he would have another. (The Rebbe then was no longer wearing a suit but a kapote so this must have been one that he no longer needed.)

He got married to Chaya Tzipora, granddaughter of the Mashpia R’ Shilem Kuratin, and received from the Rebbetzin a set of silver cutlery as a present.

In 5726, the Rebbe instructed him to go on Shlichus to Antwerp, Belgium. “You go be active with the men and the wife with the women,” the Rebbe told him.

The Holtzmans made the move and opened in their home a small minyan named Anshei Lubavitch and in later years they opened a shul called Beis Menachem with weekly minyanim and farbrengens. They were respected individuals in the community, knows for their sincerity and dedication to others.

Over the years, Rabbi Holtzman printed an edition of the Alter Rebbe’s Tanya in Antwerp, the first in the city, and opened a summer camp as well as a store selling Chassidus seforim.

Even when he moved with to Belgium, she stayed in touch with him and once, upon hearing that he was sick, she asked someone in London to send special medicine to him.

When they would visit New York with their children, they would always visit the Rebbetzin. “Even though she was a person of authority, she felt like an aunt or grandmother, a member of the family to us,” Rabbi YY Holtzman said.

In later years, they moved to Beitar Illit near Jerusalem. After his wife passed away, he moved to Crown Heights.

He is survived by his children Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Holtzman – Crown Heights; Rabbi Uri Holtzman – Beitar Illit; R’ Noach Holtzman – Crown Heights; R’ Meshulam Holtzman – Buffalo, NY, and Mrs. Fruma Krauss – Crown Heights; grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The levaya will be held on Friday passing by 770 Eastern Parkway at 11:00 AM and then the Reim Ahuvim Shul on Carroll and Schenectady, the Rebbe’s house on President Street on the way to Shomrei Hadas Chaples. Burial will be on Sunday at Har Hazeisim in Eretz Yisroel.

Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Holtzman, R’ Noach Holtzman, R’ Meshulam Holtzman and Mrs Fruma Kraus are sitting Shiva for their father Rav Yaakov Tzvi Holtzman Z”L until Shabbos at:

1451 President St.

Shacharis Three Minyanim

7:30 AM

8:30 AM

9:30 AM

Mincha Three Minyanim

7:20 PM

7:30 PM

7:40 PM

Maariv Three Minyanim:

8:25 PM

8:35 PM

8:45 PM

Rabbi Uri Holtzman is sitting at Beitar Ilit, Eretz Hakodesh, Noam Elimelech 7.

Baruch Dayan Haemes.