Goodbye Zaidy

My grandfather Rabbi Aaron Chazan was a giant of a man. He passed away Tuesday morning in Bnei Brak Israel at the ripe age of 96.

Hey, there are tons of things I would like to say about him. But why should I subjective and say my personal feelings about him.

Let his enemies do the work instead. 

In April of 1960, the newspaper Pravda, one of the most read newspapers in Russia, printed this letter to editor.

“The Public Is Called to Arms!” was the title of the letter.

“Dear Editor,

We are asking you to publicize this letter to stir up the public against parents who are sabotaging their children’s Communist heritage with their religious drivel.

These parents educate their children to feel they are holier than everyone else and they don’t respect our principles of honest work and communal living. The religious rituals practiced by the family not only harm the children but also disturb the routine of school.

These are the facts concerning the education that the four Chazan children of our school are subjected to in their home. These children also observe these religious rituals and do not attend on Saturday.

As a result, their achievement is impaired, and the study and discipline of the entire class is disturbed.

On Saturdays students work to thoroughly clean the building of the school. Chazan’s children have no part in this. As a result, they are developing egoistical character traits. Their subversive education has struck deep roots in their conscience; these children do not attribute their absence from school to their parents’ orders, but they themselves declare, “We are strictly religious and cannot transgress out religious law.”

M. Michailova V. Sharimov

Teachers in Public School No 1. in Bolshevo

I couldn’t have described him any better….

Oh and by the way, don’t think that when he arrived in Israel he took a well deserved vacation. On the contrary, he was the first to go make public Passover Seders all around Israel. He was putting of Teffilin to people on the street way before it was popular. Opened many Cheders for children all over Israel. And all that was without a basic knowledge of Hebrew…

And the list goes on…. And will continue to go on, through his hundreds of descendants spread all over the world, from Alaska to China, from Argentina to Germany… and all over the USA and Israel. Yes, he lives on.

Oh, how he lives on.

Goodbye Zaidy. May we meet very soon with the coming of Moshiach. I’m sure you are not stopping your activism up there; you just don’t know how to rest. You never did.

Goodbye. And thank you.

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