In Jerusalem this morning he died suddenly at the age of 88, the late Rabbi Meir Leib Shapira, an old and important follower of Carlin Stolin and an educator for decades in independent education, as a child in the Old City was captured in Jordanian captivity and recounted his miracle every year
Baruch Dayan HaAmet: In Jerusalem this morning, the late Rabbi Meir Leib Shapira, one of the oldest and most important followers of Carlin Stolin, who had served as an educator for decades in independent education and died at the age of 88, died suddenly.
This morning (Friday), he collapsed at his son’s house on Mirsky Street in Ramot, Jerusalem. MDA rescue drives performed resuscitation operations on him, but sadly returned his soul to its creature.
The deceased lived in the Geula neighborhood of Jerusalem and served for many years as an educator in the independent education system and as an educator in the mythological ‘Tree of Life’ Talmud Torah, where he even studied as a child.
Rabbi Leibel was born in 1933 in Jerusalem between the walls, to his great-grandfather The late Shimon Seidel, who was an educator at Etz Chaim, and his mother, Mrs. Esther Shapira, a Jerusalemite family rooted in the Carlin Hasidic court.
As a child, he was taken captive by the Jordanians. Knesset in the courtyard, where all the families prayed in the courtyard. ”
“I remember,” he said, “the Gaon Rabbi Pinchas Epstein, the late Rabbi of the Haredi community, the rabbis of Porat Yosef and the Rosh Yeshiva the Gaon Rabbi Ezra Atia, etc.” From an early age, Rabbi Shapira remembers the tension with the neighbors The Arabs and thus breaks a long-standing Jerusalem myth.
After the UN decision on the establishment of the state, a severe riot broke out among the Arabs and tensions between the Arabs and the Jews reached a peak. A real danger hovered in the streets. “We did not do it in the ruin, but in the courtyard synagogue, and the event was on Saturday. What did they give then? Not much. A little cake, a little for life and that’s it. But it lasted all Shabbat. “
The year 1958 came, the British were about to leave in H. Bayer, the Jewish community began to prepare for war and so did the Jews of the Jewish Quarter. “There was an organization of young people in the Old City,” he recalled, . I was too young and was not allowed to join, but I remember once joining one of the trainings. I was amazed to see how they practice on guns, climbing ropes and skipping from roof to roof, very dangerous things but we knew there would be no choice, and we would have to fight for our existence. We protected positions with sandbags and waited for the day when the war would break out. “
Many families fled the district to the new city, including Rabbi Epstein’s family, and a stand was set up in his empty house. “It was very difficult for my parents to leave. We were nine children, and we had nothing but the house where we lived with the little property in it. Where could we go? We decided to stay.”
He was one of the young men in the group taken captive by the Jordanians, when the prisoners arrived at the camp, after three days without anything coming into their mouths, they were given a portion of food. These were boxes of biscuits that turned out to be worms and full of ants. “On the boxes,” said R. Meir Leib, it was written that their year of production was 1925. In other words, the biscuit was 23 years old. Save the biscuits just for us, from the six days of Genesis. That’s what they served us. We cleaned them of worms and ants and that’s what we ate. ”
Rabbi Meir Leib established his home over the years and served as an educator in ‘Etz Chaim’ and later in independent education, after retiring he would sit and meditate on the Torah throughout the day.
Left behind a blessed righteous generation, sons and daughters grooms and descendants. Brother The Gaon Rabbi Yehuda (Yodel) Shapira ztl., Head of the Kollel Hazon Ish, and one of the clear disciples of the Hazon Ish.
Funeral procession today (Friday, the eve of Shabbat Kodesh Parashat Vayigash) at 13:30 from the Shamgar Funeral Home in Jerusalem through the Great Beit Midrash Heichal Darbanu Yochanan Carlin on Avinoam Yellin Street to Mount of Beatitudes where Whitman.
May his soul be bundled in the bundle of life.