Biography - Yosl's Recollections of Rabbi Ephraim Oshry

Links to Other Documents

Info on Kovno and the Slabodker Yeshiva

Links to Text in This Document (below)

Discussion of Rabbi Oshry's book "Churban Lita"

1947 Photo of Rabbi Oshry and his Brothers and Sisters

Audio cassette tapes of Rabbi Oshry's shi'urim

Favorite Yiddish expressions learned from Rabbi Oshry

Yiddish Jokes Told By Rabbi Oshry

Comments from Visitors to this Webpage

הרב אפרים אָשרי זצ"ל
Biography - Some of My Recollections of Rabbi Ephraim Oshry, zt"l
by Jason (Yosl) Alpert

Rabbi Ephraim Oshry served as Rabbi of Cong. Beth HaMedrash HaGodol, 60 Norfolk Street, NYC 10002, from 1952 until his death on the second day of Rosh HaShonah in September 2003.

An excellent biography of Rabbi Oshry appeared in the New York Times on Oct 5, 2003.

The lines below are quoted from his obituary in the "Breaking News" section of the Jewish Week.

"Rabbi Ephraim Oshry, who helped Jews live religiously during the Holocaust, died in New York on Sept. 28, 2003 at 89. Oshry held secret services and was a rabbinical scholar who answered Jews' theological questions during World War II while living in the Kovno Ghetto. After the war, Oshry published notes taken during that period, winning two National Jewish Book Awards for his writings. Oshry also set up yeshivas in Rome, Montreal and New York. In 1952, he became rabbi of Beth HaMedrash HaGodol, one of New York's oldest synagogues. Oshry is survived by his wife and nine children."

The biographies in the newspapers (that I saw) neglected to mention that Rabbi Oshry was a dynamic and inspiring orator. People would come from far and wide to listen to his "Shabbes Shuvah" and "Shabbes HaGodol" droshes (sermons). The Cong. Beth HaMedrash HaGodol would be jam-packed.

The Book "Churban Lita" ("The Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry")
חוּרבּן ליטע

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In 1951, Rabbi Oshry wrote a famous book in Yiddish entitled Khurban Lite (Churban Lita, The Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry). This book was replete with the demographics of, and genealogy of, families in various Lithuanian Shtetlach (towns). In an Appendix, the book also chronicled the experiences of the Rabbi and of some thirty-odd others who lay concealed in a "Ma-liy-ne" (underground bunker) in the Kovner ghetto -- until the ghetto was liberated by the Russians.

[The Rabbi once mentioned at one of the nightly Torah classes (shiurim) that he held at his synagogue that one of the people in that bunker was the former boxing champion of the Baltic Countries (boks-mayster fun di Baltishe Lender, in the Rabbi's excellent Yiddish).]

Rabbi Oshry once gave me a signed and inscribed copy of his book, Churban Lita. He suggested that I translate the book from the Yiddish into English.

This book, which is a virtual treasure-trove for genealogists, was translated into English in 1995 (not by me) as "The Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry" (Oshry, Efroim. The Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry. Translated by Y. Leiman from the Yiddish book "Churban Lita". New York: Judaica Press, 1995. 312 pages). See http://www.judaicapress.com/218X.pdf and http://www.judaicapress.com/product_info.php?products_id=310.

1947 Photo of Rabbi Oshry and his Brothers and Sisters

The group photo below was taken in 1947, on the occasion of the visit to South Africa by Rabbi Ephraim Oshry and his wife. This photo is on the website of the Kupiskis SIG (Special Interest Group). It appears below through a direct link to that website, and appears here with the gracious permission of the Kupiskis SIG.

In the group photo, below, Rabbi Oshry appears as a young man. He is person #36.

To see the original full-size photo, go to http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/kupiskis/Kupiskis-Society.jpg.

The identities of a number of Rabbi Oshry's siblings and cousins and their wives appear in the chart below.

For the identities of all the people appearing in the above photo, go to http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/kupiskis/johanlands.htm.

Row	L/R	Surname (Last Name)	Given Name (First Name)	Comments
Top, 1	9	Oshry	Abe	Brother of Rabbi Ephraim Oshry (?)
3	30	Oshry	Anne	Wife of Mottel (Max) Oshry
3	31	Oshry	Dora
3	32	Oshry	Sara
3	36	Oshry	Ephraim	Rabbi Ephraim Oshry, Guest of Honor
4	43	Oshry	Mottel (Max)	Brother of Rabbi Ephraim Oshry
4	44	Oshry	Harry	Cousin of Rabbi Ephraim Oshry
4	48	Oshry	Lepke	Cousin of Rabbi Ephraim Oshry
4	49	Oshry	Shmuel	Brother of Rabbi Ephraim Oshry

Rabbi Oshry also wrote 5 volumes in Hebrew entitled Shaylos U'Tshuvos Mi-ma-a-ma-kim (Responsa from the Depths (or "from the Pits"). [On the website http://www.interlog.com/~mighty/valor/halakha.htm, the book is called She'elot Ut'shovot Mimaamakim. Incidentally the above site is well worth visiting!]

A recent Google search for "oshry rabbi responsa" returned about 71 "hits". The first of these was for the website: http://www.yad-vashem.org.il/about_holocaust/documents/part3/doc182.html.

Audio Cassette Tapes of Rabbi Oshry's Shi'urim

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I personally was very close with Rabbi Oshry. In 1976, I began attending Rabbi Oshry's nightly shiurim (Torah classes) at his synagogue (Cong. Beth HaMedrash HaGodol), conducted entirely in Yiddish. I recorded dozens of these shiurim on audio cassettes. Unfortunately, all of these cassettes were lost -- except one. That one I loaned to the anthropologist and Yiddish scholar Shifra Epstein. This one tape was especially significant, because in it Rabbi Oshry described an ancient letter that lay preserved under a piece of glass covering a table-top in the Rabbi's home in pre-war Europe. This letter delineated the Oshry pedigree, going back many generations.

I remember hearing Rabbi Oshry say (and this was recorded in that tape) that if not for the Nazis (yi-makh sh'mom), that letter would still lie there safely preserved under that glass .....

I was, for a time, Rabbi Oshry's "personal chauffeur." The Rabbi was often an honored guest at weddings, and I would drive the Rabbi to these events in my VW Rabbit.

During one of these rides (I think we were crossing the Manhattan Bridge), I asked the Rabbi how come the Rabbi -- who was an ardent Litvak * and Misnaged **" - had married a woman from a Chassidic family, and that all of their children were being raised as Belzer Chassidim. Rabbi Oshry told me that he had done so because he'd wanted to make sure that his progeny would all be Yiddish speakers. (It seems that grand-children of other Misnagdishe rabbis, including the world-famous Rabbi Moshe Feinstein zt"l, were NOT raised as Yiddish speakers.) He recognized the fact that only among the Chassidim would Yiddish survive as a medium of daily expression.

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Through my long association with Rabbi Oshry, I learned a vast amount of authentic European Yiddish expressions. Some of my favorites are:

Af der gass fort men in beyde zaytn.	This is a two-way street.
Zi nemt-arop Shabbes.	She picks up (answers the telephone) on the Sabbath.
Zets-zikh tsu.	Come sit with us. ("Join us; Pull up a rock.")
Az eyner heyst Mendl, meg men essn fun zayn fendl.	If a guy is named Mendel, then you may eat from his pan. Explanation: As long as somebody is Jewish (implied by the name Mendl), then you may assume that the food in his pan (fendl) is kosher. This applied in the European shtetl perhaps 150 years ago. Back then, most Jews did indeed keep kosher.
Ikh hob zikh uysgeshlofn af alle zaytn!	I slept great, - just like a baby. Explanation: The literal translation of this saying is, "I slept .... on all sides (of my body)." The origin of this, like many Yiddish expressions, is Jewish religious tradition. The Shulchan Oruch (Code of Jewish Law) advises that a man sleep the first half of the night on one side, and the second half of the night on his other side (to avoid succumbing to a nocturnal emission).
Vifl hot ir tsu-genumen?	How much (weight) did you put on (while away on vacation). Explanation: In yesterday's poverty-stricken shtetl, obesity was a rare sign of affluence, and was much envied. When someone returned home to his shtetl after having been away on vacation ("af datsha"), he was likely to be accosted with this question upon his arrival.
TIF-le TEM-pl - טפֿלה (טיפֿלה) טעמפּל	Non-Orthodox Synagogue (derisive)
TUM-e - טומאה	Non-Jewish place of worship; church (derisive)
Er hot ge-BLE-kekhtst - ער האָט געבלעקעכצט	He was babbling (derisive - used when referring to Conservative Rabbis' sermons) In the Weinreich Dictionary, an alternate form, bleketsn (בלעקעצן), is listed. It is translated there as to "chant unintelligibly.")

Rabbi Oshry had a unique way of pronouncing certain Yiddish words. Here are some examples.
Yiddish Word	Standard Pronunciation	Rabbi Oshry's Pronunciation
מעת־לעת	mesles (24-hour period)	mas-LES
כמעט	kimat (almost)	kam-AT

Also, the gender of his Yiddish nouns was often very unusual. For example, words ending with the suffix -ung were to him -- masculine. Thus, I once heard him say, "Dem derseylung hob ikh gehert nokh in der alter heym."

Rabbi Oshry loved to alter common Yiddish expression, in order to poke fun. Some examples:
° "An Oksisher Rov" instead of "An Ortodoksisher Rov"
° "A Tayness Kholem" instead of "A Talmid khokhem"

Yiddish Jokes Told By Rabbi Oshry

Here are a couple of jokes that Rabbi Oshry זצ"ל told at the nightly shiurim that he once conducted at his synagogue:

As was all too common back in Der Alter Heym (the Old Country), a Jewish couple was suffering from abject poverty. Zey hobn poshet nit gehat vos tzu esn. (They didn't have what to eat.)

So the wife says to her husband, "I've got an idea: You go to Yankl dem milner (Yankel the local miller) and get from him some flour on credit (nem bay em mel af borg). I will use the flour to bake a batch of bagels. Then you'll bring the bagels to the local kazarme (barracks), and sell the bagels to the Russian soldiers there. With the proceeds, you'll be able to repay Yankel the miller, and we'll still have a little extra money for ourselves.

Well, when the Russian soldiers at the kazarme saw the paskudner zhid (dirty Jew) approaching, they beat him to a pulp, grabbing for themselves all of the bagels. (Nebekh....)

When the poor husband returned home, empty-handed and beaten up, his wife - instead of comforting him - began to beat him further, and mercilessly.

When he questioned her, she replied, "Az du zest az alle khapn beygl, hostu eykh gemegt tzu-khapn a por!" (When you saw that everybody was grabbing bagels, you should have grabbed some for yourself as well!)

Again, back in the Old Country, a poor man is a guest for a Friday night (Sabbath) meal at the home of a wealthy Jew. The poor man, not having eaten for perhaps a week, begins to voraciously devour the white chalah-bread that was on the dinner table.

The host remarked, "Reb Yid, Veyst ir den nit az vaise khale iz gevorn zeyer tayer, letstns? (Mister, aren't you aware that white chalah-bread has become very costly lately?)

To which the poor man retorted, "Ikh veys, ikh veys -- ober, s'iz vert!" (I know, I know -- but it's worth it!)

Despite my close personal relationship with the Rabbi, he didn't hesitate to chastise me immediately if I did something untoward. One time, while in his shul, I started to pace back and forth as I recited my prayers. He called me over to him, and sharply admonished me. He stated that in this shul it is customary to daven (pray) in one location only. "Do shteyt men af an ORT ven men davent. Men geyt nit arum!"

That's one of the traits that I loved most about Rabbi Oshry. He was the furthest thing from being a back-slapping, hand-shaking sycophant.

And Rabbi Oshry was indeed a tough hombre. He stood up to the Nazis, he stood up to the Soviet Communists, and - years later - to thugs who had vandalized his shul in New York. He would never allow himself to succumb to despair.

In 2002, a friend of mine who lived near the Rabbi (in the Lower East Side of Manhattan) told me that Rabbi Oshry was too weak to walk to shul, so they would conduct minyanim (prayer-services) at his apartment.

Unfortunately, as reported in the Jewish Week, "Rabbi Ephraim Oshry, who helped Jews live religiously during the Holocaust, died in New York on Sept. 28, 2003 at 89."

Yehey Zikhroy Borukh - Koved Zain Ondenk - Zol er zain far undz alemen a guter beter!

Comments from Visitors to This Webpage

Thank you very much for forwarding your bio of Reb Oshry. In 1952, he gave my late father Zindel Sapoznik (o''h) one of his first jobs as a khazn after my family came to the United States in 1949.

Liber Yosl, A dank! Dem vits vegn der khale hob ikh shoyn gehert, nor a gutn vits ken men, neyn, darf men hern tsvey mol. Aykh zenen bakant Imanuel Olshvangers kolektsyes? Dortn iz do nokh a vits vegn a khale a sharfern.

I just got your e-mail link to the HaRav Oshry z'tz'lv'zch'ygn'alnu. It is FANTASTIC!! I was crying - and then laughing at his quips! B'ahava...

Yosl's reply: If you want to laugh and cry some more, then check this out: The Pig in the Outhouse. You will firstly laugh because it's funny. Then you'll cry -- because the holy world of the shtetl is no more....

I read the material on Rabbi Oshry thoroughly. I have always been interested in the Beth Hamedrosh Hagodol, and was not surprised to hear that it is barely surviving. As you know, I am working very hard to ensure the survival of the shul on 34th St., but we will have to see whether it will succeed in the long run -- although its next few years seem assured.

footnotes:

* Litvaks are described by Yiddish scholar David G. Roskies as being reputedly "cold-hearted rationalists."

** Misnaged or Mitnaged (plural, Misnagdim): These were the ardent opponents of the Chassidim (the Hebrew word Misnaged literally means "one who opposes"), decrying the Chassidim's populism and their emphasis on feeling over precise ritual practice.