Rabbi Aryeh Levin—the father of the prisoners הרב אריה לוין — אבי האסירים
the Jerusalem rabbi who went to the prison to the condemned and to the hospital to the lepers
From near Orla (5645); in 5665, at twenty, he came to Jerusalem—and stayed for life. He married Tzipora Hanna, daughter of Rabbi David Shapira, and lived poorly—so poorly that it was noticed even in the Jerusalem of those days.
The prison. From 5687 he began going to the prison in the Russian Compound, and from 5691 Rav Kook appointed him prison chaplain. The men held there were of the underground, and many faced the gallows. He prayed with them—room twenty-nine was their synagogue; he carried letters to their families and brought back the answers. He worked for pardons and commutations: they tell that he once threw himself in front of the British High Commissioner's car to be heard. The prisoners called him father.
The lepers. He went also to the leper hospital—including the one in Bethlehem, where almost all the patients were Arabs. His wife cooked for them and he carried the food. Hardly anyone else went there.
How he is remembered. No books, no office, no yeshiva—and Jerusalem remembers him better than many who left volumes. He was called the tzaddik of Jerusalem, and that is not a title of learning but what the neighbours said of the man. His son-in-law was Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv. He died in 5729.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Scholarship
- Encyclopaedia Judaica, "Levin, Aryeh" — his dates, the aliyah of 5665, the prison work from 5687 and Rav Kook's appointment in 5691, the leper hospital
- S. Raz, A Tzaddik in Our Time: The Life of Rabbi Aryeh Levin (Feldheim) — the testimony of prisoners, of his household and of his students: the Sabbath visits to the prison, the letters to families, the leper hospital
Basis: documents and evidence.