1. Shmuel Ehrenfeld, known as the Mattersdorfer Rav, was a pre-eminent Orthodox Jewish rabbi in pre-war Austria and a respected Torah leader and community builder in post-war America.
21 Facts About Shmuel Ehrenfeld
1. 2.
Shmuel Ehrenfeld established Yeshivas Ch'san Sofer in New York City and taught thousands of students who went on to become leaders of American Torah Jewry.
3.
Shmuel Ehrenfeld founded the neighborhood of Kiryat Mattersdorf in Jerusalem, where his son and grandson became prominent Torah educators.
4.
Shmuel Ehrenfeld was the great-great-grandson of the Chasam Sofer through the Chasam Sofer's daughter Hindel, who married Rabbi Dovid Tzvi Ehrenfeld.
5.
Shmuel Ehrenfeld's parents were Rabbi Simcha Bunim Ehrenfeld, rav of Mattersdorf, and Rebbetzin Gittel Krauss.
6.
Shmuel Ehrenfeld received rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Meir Arik and Rabbi Yosef Engel at the age of 19.
7.
Two years later, when his father fell ill, Shmuel Ehrenfeld ran the Mattersdorf yeshiva in his place.
8.
Shmuel Ehrenfeld married his first cousin, Rochel Ehrenfeld, daughter of his uncle, Rabbi Dovid Tzvi Ehrenfeld.
9.
Shmuel Ehrenfeld assumed the leadership of the Mattersdorf community after his father's death in 1926.
10.
Shmuel Ehrenfeld was instrumental in changing public policy to exempt Jewish students from studying in public schools and to have religious rather than secular teachers teach secular subjects in Torah schools.
11.
Shmuel Ehrenfeld lobbied for Jewish soldiers to be granted leave on Shabbat and Yom Tov.
12.
Shmuel Ehrenfeld served as Rav in three Lower East Side synagogues, Anshei Marmarosh, Chevrah Eitz Chaim, and the Stropkover Chevrah, and was active in campaigns to strengthen Shabbat observance and family purity.
13.
Shmuel Ehrenfeld was known for his tremendous scholarship and scrupulous honesty.
14.
Shmuel Ehrenfeld founded the Torah community of Kiryat Mattersdorf in northern Jerusalem in memory of the Siebengemeinden of Burgenland which were destroyed in the Holocaust, Mattersdorf being one of them.
15.
Shmuel Ehrenfeld appointed his son, Rabbi Akiva Ehrenfeld, as his representative to supervise the construction and sale of apartments, but declined to serve as the new neighborhood's Rav.
16.
Akiva Shmuel Ehrenfeld moved to Kiryat Mattersdorf in the early 1990s and served as president of all these institutions.
17.
Akiva Ehrenfeld founded Yeshivas Beis Shmuel, named for his father, in the mid-1980s.
18.
Shmuel Ehrenfeld established the first Talmud Torah in Petah Tikva, named Chasan Sofer, in 1954.
19.
Shmuel Ehrenfeld died on the second day of Shavuot, 22 May 1980, after reading Megillas Rus.
20.
Shmuel Ehrenfeld's casket was then flown to London, where his students in England paid their respects, and proceeded to Israel, where he was eulogized by Rabbi Shmuel Wosner, Rabbi Yitzchok Yaakov Weiss, Rabbi Ephraim Fishel Klein, and his grandson, Rabbi Yitzchok Yechiel Ehrenfeld.
21.
Shmuel Ehrenfeld was buried on Har HaMenuchot near the grave of the Belzer Rebbe, Rabbi Aharon Rokeach.