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R. Abraham b. Noah Weinberg of Slonim (1889-1981) was born and lived in Tiberius where he led the Yeshiva Ohr Torah. He was ordained by R. Moses Kliers, Chief Rabbi of Tiberius. He visited Poland in 1906 and studied in Slonim with his uncle R. Shmuel, who sent him on many important missions. He married in Tiberius the daughter of a hasid of Slonim and participated in the civic life of the town. He was elected first a member of the municipality, and in 1938, mayor. In 1929, one of his four sons was killed by Arab terrorists in Tiberias.
When R. Solomon David Joshua, the last rebbe of Slonim, died, he refused to succeed him. He regarded himself as a follower of R. Mordecai (Mottel) Hayyim Kislints (1864-1954), who had emigrated to the Holy Land in 1935. R. Mottel found it irksome to wield authority. "If you call me a rebbe," he told his adherents, "I will not forgive you in this world or in the next." He did not deliver discourses but simply told hasidic stories. It was not until the Second World War, in which all his relatives perished, and after the death of R. Mottel, in 1954, that R. Abraham reluctantly assumed the leadership of the hasidim of Slonim and moved to Jerusalem.
The unpretentious rebbe was highly respected for his diligence and his scholarship. He spent his days in the study of the Talmud, completing the entire Talmud twice each year, on the anniversary of his father's death in Elul and on his mother's death in Adar. He was a member of the Mo'etzet Gedolei Hatorah. His yeshivah, Bet Avraham, established in 1942, is very large. There is a kollel attached to it. |
