DOVID-HERSH ZILBERSHTEYN

DOVID-HERSH ZILBERSHTEYN (b. 1897)

            He was born in Lodz, Poland, into a Hassidic working family.  He studied in religious primary school, synagogue study hall, and later in the Diskin, Lodz, and Slobodka Yeshivas.  He received rabbinical ordination.  Until 1935 he was director of studies of the yeshiva “Torat Ḥesed” in Lodz.  He was a cofounder of “Poale Agudat Yisrael” (Workers for [the ultra-orthodox] Agudat Yisrael) in Poland and its representative in the Lodz city council and Jewish community.  He wrote articles for: Der idisher arbeter (The Jewish laborer), of which he also served as editor, in Lodz (1923-1934); Der yud (The Jew), Ortodoksishe bletlekh (Orthodox leaves), Tsarfani, and Darkenu (Our way)—in Warsaw; Shearim (Gates) in Israel.  He settled in Tel Aviv in 1935.  He was the founder and leader of “Merkaz ḥinukh hatora” (Center for Torah education).  From 1948 he was a member of the first rabbinate of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area.

Sources: N. Shtsupak, Poale agudat yisrael (Workers for Agudat Yisrael) (Warsaw, 1937), pp. 8, 11; Khayim Leyb Fuks, in Fun nonentn over (New York) 3 (1957), p. 241.