Monsey Memories: Rav Yaakov Shapiro

Yitzy Fried 

A true pioneer of the Monsey community was Rav Yaakov Shapiro who, despite passing away at a young age was instrumental in a number of Monsey institutions that endure to this day. 

He was born in 1903 in the town of Kopycznyce, Poland. He was the son of Rav Asher Zeltner, a grandson of great talmidei chachamim. His mother Yocheved was a devout and pious woman. 

Not much is known about his childhood, but his grandchildren relate that he always carried a sefer with him, and was an especially studious boy. He left Poland for Pressburg, Hungary, where he learned shechitah. 

It was in Vienna that he met his Rebbetzin. He served as the rov of Kitsee, Austria, for three years. He also served as the shochet and the chazzan of the town. But as the war hovered over Europe, he knew that he had to get out.  

After the Anschluss in 1938, his family and their entire community were expelled from their homes in Kittsee, Austria by the Nazis. With only the clothes on their backs, and with no neighboring country willing to take them in, the group of 60-odd Jews were placed on a rat-infested cargo barge for months and then confined to a detention camp for over a year. Even while finding himself in a most perilous and frightening situation, Rav Yaakov was filled with optimism and hakaras hatov. In a letter to his chavrusa during the harrowing ordeal, without minimizing the trauma, he wrote, “There are no words that can adequately express my deep sense of gratitude to Hashem for the kindness He did on behalf of my family.”

The family was granted asylum and arrived in the United States just prior to the outbreak of the war. They settled in Spring Valley, New York. Zaida Yaakov was instrumental in establishing the Yeshiva of Spring Valley, which today has an enrollment of over 1,800 students. 

There are newspaper articles from the time highlighting his involvement in the founding of the yeshiva, a Talmud Torah, and his service as a rov in the community. 

In a tragic turn of fate, in 1945 he passed away suddenly at the age of 42, due to complications from surgery.

Rav Yaakov had managed to smuggle a sefer Torah out of Europe. But not before the Nazis, Ym”sh, slashed it with a knife—precisely over the words of “The more they tormented them, the more they multiplied.” 

Rav Yaakov Shapiro, a pioneer of Monsey, suffered much in his short life. But his family of Torah-true Yidden live on and multiply, carrying on in his ways to this very day.