He survived Dachau concentration camp, emigrated to America, raised a family, and published his memoirs. And last Sunday Rabbi Yehuda Meir Gross beamed as he escorted a new Sefer Torah he commissioned down Bedford Avenue to the Veitzen shul in Williamsburg.

“It was a big success and a great achievement for my grandparents and for the family,” said Rabbi Gross’s grandson Yossi, a mortgage broker and landlord. (Yossi Gross has been in the news recently for offering to help nine families whose Patterson, N.J. homes were destroyed in a fire. Gross is the landlord of one of the three buildings.)

Born in Száraz Peték, Hungary, Rabbi Hershel Gross, his grandson said, was a student of the Pupa Rebbe, Rabbi Yaakov Chizkiah Greenwald, whose work, Vayaged Yaakov, he published. From 1970-1982, Rabbi Gross acted as principal of Bnos Yaakov, the Pupa girls school.

Last year, Yossi Gross said, a Sefer Torah procession passed by his grandparents’ home, causing his grandmother to remark, “When will the day come when we will be able to do something like this?” Gross was present and helped his grandmother’s wish materialize.

Among the several-hundred participants marching down Bedford Avenue was NYPD Lieutenant Eltan Cohn, an Orthodox Jew, who was dressed in full uniform. Formerly a neighbor of Yossi Gross, Cohn wrote one of the remaining letters in the Sefer Torah.

Ever the policeman, Cohn commented, “It was well-organized from a police perspective” and then added, “From a Jewish perspective, it is always great to be part of the mitzvah of completing a Sefer Torah.”

(Article and photo reprinted from the Jewish Press)

[Photo caption: Yossi Gross looks on as NYPD Lieutenant Eltan Cohn writes a letter in the new Sefer Torah with the help of the scribe, Rabbi Avraham Markowitz.]