Why Boymelgreen Donated a Shul

By COLlive reporter

16-years-ago Rabbi Yosef Gerlitzky received an unexpected phone call. On the line was R’ Mordechai Dovid Boymelgreen, a charitable chossid who lived in the nearby city of Petach Tikvah.

“He had a special request,” says Rabbi Gerlitzky, Rabbi of Central Tel Aviv and Director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Tel Aviv.

Boymelgreen was born to a frum family and learned in the Mechina of the famous Yeshivas Chachei Lublin in Poland before the Holocaust. He was later enrolled in the Yeshiva of Lubavitch in Otwock and found a liking to the ways of Chassidus.

“He was a great masmid and knew what is known as the 3 bavos of Gemara –Bava Kama, Bava Metziah and Bava Basra– by-heart,” recalls his son in law, R’ Ari Chitrik.

When the Second World War broke out, Boymelgreen returned to his hometown of Zvolin. Since the area was conquered by the Nazis, he escaped with a small group of bochurim to the city of Radom where the Yeshiva continued to operate.

Acccording to witnesses, his father sponsored the existence of the Yeshiva although he wasn’t a Chabad chossid. Learning there were some of the great chassidim and Mashpiim.

Mordechai Dovid Boymelgreen was the only one of his family that survived the Holocaust on European Jewry. He was also the only bochur from the Yeshiva in Radom that survived.

He survived but not without suffering. He was taken to a concentration camp where he endured hard labor. At the end of the war, he returned home and learned of the devastation.

In the phone conversation with Rabbi Gerlitzky, Boymelgreen said that “during those years of rage, I promised to Hashem that if I survive the inferno in peace, I will donate a shul in Eretz Yisroel in memory of my parents.”

Boymelgreen, who lived in Crown Heights in later years, said now is the time to fulfill that promise and asked for suggestion.

Rabbi Gerlitzky suggested the renovation of the Geulas Yisroel synagogue in Tel Aviv – the section used for weekday davening.

“He had great midos and everytime he would visit Israel, he and his wife would visit the Chabad institutions in Tel Aviv, the Chazon Eliyahu Yeshiva and Kollel Tiferes Zekeinim,” he said.

A few years later, another philanthropist offered to renovate the main sanctuary of the Geulas Yisroel synagogue.

“The sign on the exterior wall had the dedication of Rabbi Boymelgreen,” Rabbi Gerlitzky said. “So I said that if they wanted to touch the current sign (to allow for the name of the second donor), they need to ask Rabbi Boymelgreen.”

When Rabbi Gerlitzky traveled for Gimmel Tammuz to New York, he went to the Ohel to ask for a blessing and then went to visit Boymelgreen to ask permission for the change.

“The moment I asked him, he replied, ‘I give it up’. He was a noble minded person,” the rabbi notes.

In the end, they found a way to keep both signs honoring the donors – a lasting testament to their kind heart and Boymelgreen’s good nature.