YWN regrets to inform you of the Petira of Dayan Gershon Lopian ZATZAL, of Edgware, England. He was the son of HaRav Leib Lopian and Grandson of Hagon HaRav Elya Lopian. Levaya Details will be published shortly.
Dayan Gershon Lopian, the oldest of eight, was born in Portsmouth in 1938. In 1942 his family moved to Gateshead, where his father Rabbi Leib Lopian זצ”ל became one of the founding members of the Gateshead Kollel. In 1944 Rabbi Leib was appointed Rosh Yeshiva of Gateshead Yeshiva.
The Dayan learned in Gateshead Yeshiva under his father until the age of 21. He then travelled to Kfar Chasidim to learn under his grandfather Rabbi Elya Lopian זצ”ל , with whom he developed a strong bond.
He then moved to Chevron Yeshiva. Aged only 24, he became one of only a handful of people to receive semicha from Hagon HaRav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach זצ”ל . Other leading poskim of the time also gave the Dayan semicha.
The Dayan spent 14 years in the Sunderland Kollel. During that time he married Judy Saberski, the daughter of Dr Yitzchak Saberski from Stamford Hill, London
Over a lengthy period, he would travel from Sunderland to London to do shimush under Rabbi Heinoch Padwa זצ”ל, becoming one of his closest talmidim.
Aged 35, encouraged by the Rebbetzin, he travelled to America for five months to do shimush under the Posek HaDor, Hagon HaRav Moshe Feinstein זצ”ל from whom he received the highest form of semicha.
In 1974, aged 39, he was appointed Rabbi of Edgware Yeshurun Synagogue. Soon after, he was appointed as a Dayan on the Federation Beis Din.
He took upon himself the momentous task of building the Edgware Mikveh, together with Dayan Ehrentreu שליט”א . This was a revolutionary undertaking, achieved through tremendous hard work and determination.
The following video was a tribute to him at Melava Malka shown just two weeks ago. It includes his Yichus.
Yehai Zichro Boruch
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
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3 Responses
Baruch Dayan HaEmes
it brings tears to my eyes to write this-as I see us losing our greatest leaders in klal yisroel-when you know this tragic loss could’ve been avoided if we did teshuva earlier.
What a tragedy-& loss- we caused cause we cant get our act together & do teshuva WHAT ARE WE ALL WAITING FOR?
Perhaps we are not appreciating these Gedolei Hador that Hashem has sent us to lead & guide us in this world. i.e. when someone takes something for granted & doesn’t give the proper thanks, then it gets taken away from us. are we listening to our gedolei Hador & their guidance? when they make takanos-for our good-to help us return to Hashem & become better?
tragic unbelieveable & horrific numbers,
in the past 3 Years since the tragic loss of Leiby Kletzky, we have loss over 100 gedolei Hador-all leaders of klal yisroel throughout the world-with many of them niftar in their 70,s or 80’s
this is a plague of loss of gedolim with no stop ahead R”L
HOW MUCH LONGER (MANY MORE C”V) WILL IT TAKE?
until this mageifa ends?
for a complete list of these gedolim with the date Niftar , their young ages niftar & where they were rav/rebbe etc… in klal yisroel just leave your email in a reply
May all of Klal yisroel start doing teshuva NOW-before tragedy strikes again C”V-& THEN mashiach will come b’karov
Reply to #1 – While we do have to do teshuvah, are you on a madreigah to be able to correlate events such as this with the reason behind them?
I would recommend your first in teshuvah be to stop surfing the web.
What a huge loss to klall Yisroel! Rabbonim from all over the world would rely on the Dayans psak and guidance. His breadth of knowledge coupled with incredible chochma enabled him to answer to every specific person and circumstance. The Dayan was a true gadol in knowing which areas of Torah/halocho to be machmir in and more importantly when necessary when to be meikel. His love for every Jew, warmth, mesirus nefesh, accessibility and guidance are irreplaceable.