By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for the Five Towns Jewish Times

This week marked the tragic loss of a remarkable woman, Rebbitzen Gita Cohen A”H. Her’s was a life replete with sacrifice for Torah; a life that proved the Talmudic adage (Brachos 63b), “Torah is only truly established in one who sacrifices greatly for it.” Her husband, children, and sons-in-law are all Roshei Yeshiva – leaders and teachers of Torah.

Rebbitzen Cohen was a jewel who lived in the Far Rockaway community for the last thirty years. Slowly and steadily, she and her husband, ybl”c Rav Shaya Cohen Shlita brought thousands and thousands of people to a life of Torah and Mitzvos. Who was this remarkable woman, and where did she come from?

GROWING UP IN YERUSHALAYIM

Rebbitzen Gita Cohen A”H was born in the holy city of Yerushalayim, three years before the War of Independence. She grew up in a two room apartment. One room housed Reb Aryeh Levin zt”l, the famed Tzaddik of Yerushalayim, and his Rebbitzen. The other room housed her parents and all of their children. There was no heat and no running water in the apartment. Americans cannot fathom these conditions. And yet, she grew up in a happy home, where Torah and Mitzvos were all that were important.

She lived in close proximity to her uncle and aunt, the Elyashiv family. Her cousin, Rav Elyashiv’s daughter, was her childhood friend and playmate. Although poor from an economic standpoint, she was a princess in terms of the towering spirituality of her family forebears. She grew up soaking in the Torah of giants of Yiddishkeit.

And soak up, she did. The Rebbitzen was a child prodigy, and at the age of one was fully fluent in Yiddish. The Brisker Rav was so impressed by her as a little girl that he remarked, “That young girl is destined for greatness.” Her grandfather lovingly referred to her as, “Giteleh HaChachamah.”

Tragedy struck the family at a young age. In 1948, in the War of Independence, the apartment was shelled by Arab bombs. The room where she and Rav Elyashiv’s daughter was badly hit. The explosion caused the ceiling and walls to cave in. Rav Elyashiv’s daughter was tragically killed r”l, and the young Rebbitzen Gitel was knocked unconscious and badly burned, hidden by the rubble around her. Her mother was unaware that she was in the room and only through a miracle did she notice her foot sticking out from the rubble. Her husband later commented that she was given a gift of 68 extra years of life.

THE ALTER

Rebbitzen Cohen was the great-granddaughter of the Alter of Slabodka, of whom the Chazon Ish had said that all Torah in America and Israel exists on account of him. The Alter built Torah. After her marriage to Rabbi Shaya Cohen, she moved to America and together with her husband, built Torah as well. They founded Torah institutions that brought thousands and thousands of people to a life of Torah and Mitzvos. There are students studying from coast to coast on account of her and her husband’s prodigious efforts; in the Batei Midrashim of BMG in Lakewood, New Jersey to the Beis Midrash of Yeshiva Ner Aryeh in the San Fernando Valley of California.

In her home, the Alter’s Torah and Mussar thought was part of the family legacy. She herself loved to review Rav Shalom Shadron’s collections of his Mussar thought, Ohr HaTzafun. She had great appreciation for his Mussar thought too and would often repeat them to students and Roshei Yeshiva that she would meet. The Rabbonim and Roshei Yeshiva of Far Rockaway, Rav Bressler and Rav Perr, for example, were very impressed and taken with her wisdom and knowledge.

REB ARYEH LEVINE

Her grandfather on her mother’s side was the famed Tzaddik of Yerushalayim, Reb Aryeh Levine zt”l and she would accompany her grandfather on his Mitzvah-laden expeditions. Reb Aryeh Levine visited prisoners, those whom society scorned. He would visit indigent patients in Shaarei Zedek hospital and elsewhere, often lying to the nurses, saying he was their relative. He did so in order that they should care for the patient better. Reb Aryeh was mekarev the future Prime Minister of Israel, Menachem Begin. He had a genuine love of people and was completely non-judgmental of others. His granddaughter inherited these traits as well. Later in life, she herself worked with the at-risk girl population. They loved her deeply, because they saw her non-judgmental attitudes and her genuine love and concern. Teaching side by side with her, I myself saw her lovingly embrace girls, girls with multiple piercings, who were rejected by others. Now these young ladies are Kollel wives and mothers in Klal Yisroel. Today, they remember her loving and kind demeanor.

On her father’s side she was the granddaughter of Rav Shlomo Yehudah Leib Pletchinsky zt”l, the Av Beis Din of Vishdi and later the Av Beis Din of Dvinsk, home of both the Rogetshover Gaon and Rav Meir Simcha, author of the Meshech Chochma. Rav Tfelinsky of Yerushalayim, a former Chevrusah of Reb Laizer Pletchinsky zt”l related that Rav Meir Simcha would often converse in learning with Rav Shlomo Yehudah. To be an Av Bais Din in such a city is no easy feat, particularly with such luminaries as residents. Rav Shlomo Yehudah Leib was the son of Rebbitzen Sorah Liba, the daughter of the Alter.

She never knew her paternal grandparents. They were murdered in the vicious Nazi onslaught of Dvinsk. In December of 1942, thousands of Jews many of them old men and women and children, were brought to a clearing outside of the city. The Nazis yimach sh’mam ordered the Jews to dig large ditches and machine-gunned them all, and buried them in the pits. Sadly, his great writings were also lost at the time.

Rebbitzen Cohen was the niece of the Gadol HaDor, Rav Yoseph Shalom Elyashiv zt”l and lehavdil bain chaim l’chaim – the cousin of Rav Chaim Kanievsky Shlita. She was the daughter of Rav Laizer Pletchinsky t”l, one of the gedolei haDor, the Rosh Yeshiva of Beis Aryeh in Yerushalayim, and an early choice for the leadership of the Ponovech Yeshiva in Bnei Brak.

KNOWLEDGE OF TANACH

In her own right, she was a remarkably illustrious and Tzanuah woman whose knowledge of Tanach, meforshim, and the Mussar thoughts of the giants of the previous generation was uncanny. She had her own interpretation of a posuk in Tehillim (128:3):

“Eshtecha k’gefen poriah b’yarkesai baisecha banecha k’shesilei zaisimsaviv l’shulchanecha. – Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table.” Her rendering of this verse had the words b’yarkesai baisecha as the operative term – When she is b-yarkesai baisecha – in the inner house – expressing the ideals of the Torah’s ideals of Tznius – then your children shall become those olive shoots. Tznius brings blessing and bracha.

Rav Laizer Pletchinsky zatzal in the introduction to his Sefer Sh’lom Yehudah writes how he was plucked from the fiery ashes of the Nazi holocaust in Europe and made it to Yerushalayim where he was able to become a close talmid of the Brisker Rav in Yerushalayim and the Chazon Ish in Bnei Brak. He exchanged numerous letters with both of them. Rebbitzen Cohen absorbed this remarkable Torah environment and later transplanted it all to her homes in Los Angeles and later New York.

MARRIAGE

She married Rav Shaya Cohen in 1968, a Talmid of Rav Henoch Leibowitz ztL, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshavs Chofetz Chaim. All the Gedolei Torah of Yerushalayim were present at the wedding. “Who would miss the wedding of Rav Aryeh Levine’s granddaughter?” remarked one of the attendees. A year after the wedding, her illustrious grandfather Reb Aryeh, passed away.

In 1975, Reb Shaya Cohen and his Rebbitzen moved to North Hollywood, California, and established Emek High School, later to be renamed Valley Torah Center. There they worked prodigiously, side by side to reach out to others in Torah. They sent their Talmidim and Talmidos to Yeshivos and seminaries in Yerushalayim. Much of the Torah community in North Hollywood exists because of their dedicated years in the Valley.

STRUGGLES

The Rebbitzen and her husband struggled in California as well, but she always was a happy person, fulfilling the commandment of Ivdu es hashem b’simcha. They struggled with tragedy. At a young age, they lost their young son, Aryeh, who was named after her grandfather. He too was a brilliant child prodigy. It is difficult to lose a child, and yet she knew that for the rest of the children she must continue to show them ivdu es hashem b’simcha.
There was anti-Semitism as well. Once at the Shabbos minyan, someone had set fire to the fence behind the minyan, by pouring gasoline and setting it on fire. Swastikas were painted on the building, and once even three young bochurim were attacked by anti-Semitic goyim. It was a time where no one paid attention to such incidents.

They also struggled financially. Once one of the supporters, of the Yeshiva in California, “Mr. F” saw that the Cohens were driving a jalopy of a car. When Mr. F purchased a new car, he gave his old car to the Cohens. The problem was that it was a Lincoln Continental, albeit twelve years old. Someone commented that he is surely being paid well, driving a Lincoln. At that moment, however, Rebbitzen Cohen was at home sitting in the dark because the electricity was shut off for lack of payment. Rabbi Cohen was always paid last, after the secular studies teachers, and after the Rebbeim. Rebbitzen Cohen handled the difficulties with an unparalleled Emunah and bitachon – knowing that their mission was an important one.

After the move to New York and in her late forties, she became a school psychologist, both to help others as well as to help with the family finances.
The Rebbitzen was fighting off illness during her last years of her life. Still, she merited to partake in the wedding of a granddaughter during the last week of her life. Her passing was a shock to her family, as the doctors had said that her numbers were improving.

AT THE LEVAYA

At her levaya, her brother Reb Shlomo Pletchinsky Shlita, a Rosh yeshiva in Yerushalayim, in the teary Hebrew sing-song that characterizes Yerushalmi levayas, eulogized her saying:

“She was the pe’er of the family. She personified ahavas haTorah. When father was by the Chazon Ish and the Brisker Rav she absorbed it all. With all the ruchnios of the dooros of that situation. Father was so proud of her. She was his right-hand assistant, she ran all his errands. She had Ahavas Hatorah, Mesirus nefesh l’torah.”

Rav Yechiel Perr Shlita in his eulogy of the Rebbitzen focused on her “lechtech acharai bamidbar” how she went with her husband to the midbar, the wilderness in California, and then to start all over again in New York.
One son-in-law, Rabbi Avi Pollack, the Rosh Yeshiva of Am HaTorah, said: What a tznuah she was, a brilliant woman. There was a power of Torah in the house.. A love of learning. My wife would call to help prepare a lesson. She knew all tanach with meforshim. My daughters would call for help in assignments and papers. She was always giving..”

Rabbi Yehudah Cohen, the eldest son said: You loved us unconditionally. You personified emor me’at v’assei harbeh. All you wanted was for us to learn Torah. Your great-grandfather was the alter, your uncle Rav Elyashiv zatzal, your father Rav lazer Pletchinsky. She would tell us how she grew up in the house with no running water. Once she related how there was a sign by the butcher that he is not taking credit. She turned around, crying. ln 1975, they went to Los Angeles. A group of Beis Medrash bochrim offered to stay to help the Yeshiva, but only if her husband would stay all day in the Beis Midrash to give shiur. When she heard she was elated, “It’s a Mishna – hamekabel alav ol torah – One who accepts upon himself the yoke of Torah, all worldly matters are moved from him. That day, my father was put in contact with someone who left the yeshiva a million dollars.”

Another son, Rav Yechezkel said: “I had an aneurism [a few years ago, where his situation was touch and go – Ed]. She was there the whole time. She sat by my side. My sister told me that she heard her say at the time that I should get better and it should happen to her.”

There were many more maspidim as well, and not a dry eye in the Yeshiva.

Another son explained how one just cannot say stories, because these were maasim bechol yom – every day occurences. She loved Torah, the only thing that mattered to her was Torah learning. She got upset when the Torah was said when she was in the kitchen. She would say, “Now you are talking Torah? You must wait for me to hear it, when I come back to the table.”

At the shiva in Yerushalayim, the great Gedolim of Eretz Yisroel came to be Menachem Avel. The Rebbitzen is buried on Har HaZaisim next to her illustrious father.

LEGACY

She leaves a two fold legacy. She leaves a remarkable family who have impacted and will continue to impact Klal Yisroel with the Torah and genuine love for others. Her son, Rav Yehuda, is a Rosh Yeshiva in Yeshiva Zichron Aryeh in Far Rockaway. Rav Yechezkel is a Rosh Yeshiva in Yeshivas Ner Aryeh, in California. Rav Eliyahu and Rav Yisroel Meir are Roshei Yeshiva in Yeshivas Ohr HaTzafun in Yerushalayim. The other sons and sons-in-law are Marbitzei Torah as well.

She also leaves untold numbers of Klal Yisroel who themselves were touched and inspired by this remarkable woman.

The author can be reached at [email protected]