Rav Shmuel Ashkenazi, z’l, a resident of Jerusalem known as the “ish sefarim” due to his decades-long habit of buying a new sefer every day from the time of his wedding passed away on Shabbos at the age of 98, Kikar Shabbos reported.
A relative of the niftar told Kikar H’Shabbos that during the first few months of the coronavirus pandemic, Rav Ashkenazi eagerly awaited the moment he would be able to daven in shul once again. When shuls were finally reopened, Rav Ashkenazi returned to shul, thinking he would be safe since anyone with the coronavirus wouldn’t attend.
“But a murderer awaited him there!” his relative said. “One of the mispallelim who was aware that he was carrying the coronavirus nevertheless came to shul and sat not far from the elderly R’ Shmuel, who was mapkid to sit at a separate table.”
Shortly later, R’ Ashkenazi began developing symptoms of the virus, passing away on Shabbos, a few weeks later. “And to be clear,” his relative continued, “Rav Shmuel had no underlying illnesses despite his advanced age. He died only because of the coronavirus which he caught from the mispallel who violated the regulations.”
R’ Ashkenazi was born in Yerushalayim to a family that lived in the city for generations.
Due to his unusual minhag of buying a sefer every day, his home in Batei Ungarim looked like an otzeir sefarim, with sefarim lining all the walls of his apartment until the ceiling. He even had ladders to reach the upper shelves but had difficulty climbing them in his later years.
What made his home even more unusual was that sefarim even lined the walls of his small Israeli kitchen. Instead of upper kitchen cabinets in the small space allocated to it, there are sefarim shelves. Sefarim shelves also cover the other upper walls of the kitchen.
R’ Ashkenazi didn’t just buy the sefarim but also learned from them – from all of them.
He published a sefer of his Torah writings several years ago, Alfa Beisa Kadmisa.
Yehi Zichro Baruch.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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38 Responses
can they dare say Devorim 21:7 for the latest round of tragedies
All those who avoid wearing masks etc
for even the most remote possibility
The “frum” world in parts of the USA such as in the Brooklyn, Lakewood, etc. is in denial.
“It’s over.”
“We have herd immunity”
“it’s all a hoax.”
“Most people didn’t die from Covid-19, the hospitals killed them”
People who died had something else , but the hospitals called it Covid.”
“Everybody had it already and most don’t know it.”
“Masks don’t help.”
etc etc.
And they know this how?
I don’t understand. How can someone be so sure about who he caught the virus from?
If someone knowingly infected with the virus comes to shul or goes in public without a mask, the gedolei hador paskened that he has 100% a din of a rodef…therefore one may kill him! This is no joke! 100% a rodef!!!
The person with coronavirus may not have realized they had it or may have thought they were no longer contagious.
Were people wearing masks? How far apart were they?
thank you for the emphasis on MURDER its about time we stop protecting and looking the other way at those who are POSHAIA with other peoples lives by not wearing a mask
i do not think the IRAY MIKLAT would help these people MURDERERS
enough denying or thinking what you have heard for 6 months is fake and if you don’t believe it will not hurt YOU but you can still be a carrier and give it to someone else
Na, he passed away from age or natural causes, the killer will surely explain! But in reality שמים knows and this guy is going to sadly have his day of reckoning!
How people could be so reckless is unfathomable. Similarly there was a גננת whose לויה was this past Friday and she wrote that she caught it from a child in her גן whose family members were suffering at home with the virus yet the parents sent this child to גן thus causing the גננת to catch it. It’s hard to imagine!
What’s this family member going to do if he finds out after 120, that HaRsv Ashkenazi perhaps did not catch Wuhan Virus from this person whom he suspects? What happens if he even finds out that it wasn’t Wuhan virus at all?
I would hate to see what his kaporah would have to be.
based on this , at least now we know why the israeli government is trying to lock down certain neighborhoods.
Total Apikursus. Our belief system is that no one dies until HKBH decides it’s time. This is why we Daven on Yomim Noraim to be written in the Sifrei Chaim. Evidently the editors at Yeshiva World News sbuscribe to the concept of Shtei Reshuyos Chas Veshalom – a God on one hand and a Corona Virus on the other. Of course no scientific evidence is offered either to back up the claim that an individual attending the same minyan knowingly,deliberately,wantonly, and premeditatively, infected the niftar and should be deserving of the title “Murderer”. Was the alleged “murderer’ someone who tested positive on a PCR test? Were they symptomatic? were they asymptomatic? If someone is asymptomatic yet test positive on a PCR test are they “infectious” to the extent that they can transmit the virus? There are many other questions that could be asked. The only sure answer that we have is that the frum media outlets like YWN are spreading fake news, fake science, and real hysteria.
Baruch Dayan haEmet. In my opinion, this article – appearing on Yeshiva World of all places – is an Chillul Hashem. I understand the grief of someone who loved the Rav but, calling someone a murderer WITHOUT PROOF should be beneath contempt. And, worse, YW quotes them publicly. Why do I say without proof? Unless they had trackers in all the viral particles the supposed guilty party expressed, they cannot know that person is responsible. Go ahead and be angry with the person IF YOU KNOW he knowingly exposed others but a Jew should know better than to make an unprovable accusation of murder and YW should never have published this.
BDE.
“Rav Shmuel had no underlying illnesses despite his advanced age.”
It seems to me that being 98 years old is a huge comorbidity issue. He was certainly patur from tefila b’ztibur under normal circumstances. The common annual flu would’ve led to his petira.
רב שמואל אשכנזי ז”ל was not just a collector of ספרים. He was also a great בקי in them, and a מחבר of numerous outstanding works himself.
If someone was indeed מזיק him as the article suggests, it is an extremely grave matter.
יש דין ויש דיין.
Baruch dayan emes.
The Mishnah tells us kol harodeif min ha’kovid, covid rodeif acharov
1. What was a 98 year old doing going to shul in a pandemic?
2. How did gabaim allow a 98 year old to come?
3. Was he wearing a mask?
4. Was the sick person wearing a mask?
When Moshiach establishes his rule, the “Murderer” may be sentenced to confinement in one of the “Urai Miklat”.
And since he’ll need to remain there until the Kohein-Gadol is Niftar, he may be there for a verrrrry long time, seeing as the average lifespan then will be for centuries.
I hope the senseless dope was made aware of what he accomplished…
I was zoche to know him nearly 30 years, a wonderful straight person, looked like a simple Yerushalmi Yid and you wouldn’t guess he was a highly respected historian at Hebrew U. I davened with him the last year or so and even though he kept very quiet at his advanced age, he was always looking in sefarim and absorbing them. At one point I posted in the shul a page from Piskei Teshuvos (124:7) with passages underlined about the great damage done by people who talk during davening, and he took it down to make interesting annotations and then put it back up again. I scanned it with his annotations and if there’s some way to post it I’d be happy to do so. One time he brought to my dira a choshuv grandson of his to borrow my set of Hirsch Chumashim, which the grandson learned through thoroughly and absorbed them all. May he be a meilitz yosher for all of us.
very sad,
but elderly people and people with poor health should stay OUT of shuls….
This is a misleading headline!!
A person is not becoming a רוצח so quickly! The virus is potentially being carried by everyone around!!! Any person who is not keeping all social distance & every safety measurement could be blamed as a murderer!!
Despite this the gemore said
הכל בידי שמים חוץ מצינים פחים
A person is responsible for himself to keep himself healthy. & if there’s virus around every person is responsible to keep himself away from others.
Speculation at best.
1) did the guy with covid came to tell them that he knew that he was sick and came to shul anyways?
2) Why did the 98 yr-old come to shul at all and thus not following israeli health regulations that state that persons over the age of 60 should not attend shul?
good story though 😉
1. If you are in public and can’t socially distance, you should wear a mask.
2. You should take Covid 19 seriously.
3. Stop shouting “Murderer!” Maybe this is holding back Moshiach.
THE STORY IS INCOMPLETE. WAS THE CRIMINAL ARRESTED AND CHARGED WITH CAUSING A PERSON’S DEATH?
Fake news of course. And shame on this family member calling this guy a murderer. And shame of YWN for even posting it. You think Sanhedrin will kill this guy for retzicha?? No shot. So many unanswered questions.
Old people(over 65) and people with preexisting conditions should stay home, period.
It’s unfortunate that the Rav was misinformed that just because the cases leveled off it meant that there was no virus to catch.
Some people don’t even know they are carrying it
Of course any person who has been informed that he has an active case must quarantine himself, per the law.(civil and halachic psak)
you cannot possible know who gave him the virus, what a stupid headline, besides for the fact theres a heskas kashrus on every frum yid, i never saw such a weird article, sounds so babyish, instead of pointing fingers at everyone, look at yourself, it was his time to go, no one knows for sure where he caught the virus, thats a safek gomur, and its against a vadai heskas kashrus of the guy you are accusing, so if anyone has any learning background, its called ein safek motsei midei vadai.
He was 98 years old you think the infected person and their may have been many who didn’t know they were infected…you can’t call A shogeig Karov Lanus l’gabei a 98 year old man who naturally could die from the common cold. Because if you learned a little bit of Science…not like the Rambam, Ramban, or Rabeinu Bachay…just HS Biology…when you get older you’re immune system like your bones, and physical vigor decline. More Narishkeit to read I could be learning mishnayos for his Shloshim.
Maybe you should ask if he went anywhere else if you’re going to ask “how do you know”. If I do nothing at all but go to shul, where else does it come from but the table next to me?
Also. NAFTALICOLEMAN, how many people have been arrested in the United States for the cruise ship negligence? In Australia they let positive cases leave the ships and fly all over the country causing many many outbreaks. The government charged the people responsible for policy with manslaughter. In the United States, this happened many many times for months. Guess how many folks were charged?
None. So it’s a bogus question. One that should possibly be fixed.
But this site was advocating breaking into parks for kids to play during a pandemic . This site advocates opening of sleep a-way camps.
Hypocrites. All of you.
#BLM
Moderators Response: This site wasn’t advocating anything. This site reports news. You are an anti-semite who has been trolling this website for ages.
He was a great man. His family
He did not die JUST because someone came to shul in spite of his diagnosis. Granted, the terrible person who went to shul despite his diagnosis is certainly not stamping his Gan Eden ticket, but the rav died because G-d decided it was his time. If it had not been his time, than in spite of the illness, he would not have died.
There are many inaccuracies in the story. He was indeed a great man and was indeed born in Yerushayaim (although not to a family in Yerushalayim for generations…..his father was born in Hungary)
He loves Seforim and was a librarian.
Not sure about many of the other acrimonious details.
Yehi Zichro Boruch
BDE
A lot of assumptions, and no facts. As for all the ppl who claim the person who allegedly infected the Rav wasn’t wearing a mask, do you as a mask wearer dispose of your disposal mask every 2-3 hours???? Do you as a mask wearer wash your cloth mask after every use??? If not, then you are also carrying around and shedding and spreading the virus…Maybe it is the UNPROVEN, LACK OF DATA which supports wearing masks which is actually spreading the virus bc if the disposable masks are not being disposed of and the cloth masks are not being washed after each use, you are unwittingly a spreader. Having said that, isn’t better to judge our fellow Jew favorably since we don’t really know the true cause of the virus and/or whether masks help or hurt in the spread of the contagion?
There are many reports of people living in the same room with a positive case and only one having had the virus (happened to me). There does seem to be herd immunity in Borough Park and similar places @silentmoishe, can you argue with plain facts? Obviously, this is a completely unproven story, where someone is so frustrated about the fact that a 98 year old was niftar only after isolating for a few months, that he needs to figure out where SOMEONE ELSE went wrong. We all do that sometimes and can relate to it, but we will never know that someone is really a murderer.
@NAFTALICOLEMAN: Hey CALM YOURSELF DOWN. Maybe the criminal was you, when you unknowingly breathed out some virus particles and it traveled exactly into this Shul. Don’t worry, we won’t arrest you, and anyhow THEYESHIVAWORLD doesn’t have its own police department, so I guess that was why they couldn’t tell you they’d actually arrested the person they’d indicted for murder (I haven’t heard any other reason to believe he’s considered a murderer).
I already commented but I just want to add a Yasher Koach to flatbushantivaxxer! And, of course to all the other above who recognize this article as being anti-Jewish. (I noticed that, so far, the only comment YW chose to address was the one by the BLM troll so I am grateful they at least care that much.)