Monday, 15 June 2015

KHAYIM-ABA GOMER

KHAYIM-ABA GOMER (ca. 1898-July 1941)
            He was born in Bialystok, Poland, into a well-to-do family.  He studied in religious primary school, yeshiva, and later philosophy in Berlin University.  From the late 1920s, he was the head rabbi of Revel (Tallinn), Estonia.  From 1926 until WWII, he was a contributor to the Orthodox weekly newspaper Dos vort (The word) in Vilna, in which he published articles on Jewish issues and education.  His treatises excelled in their beautiful style and rich use of the Yiddish language.  He also contributed to the monthly journal Der shabes (The Sabbath) in Riga (1929), the Hebrew-language Yeshurum (Jerusalem) in Riga (1924-1925), and the journal Bes-yankev in Lodz, among others.  In July 1941, while the Germans were fortifying themselves in Estonia, R. Gomer and the elite of Revel were dragged from their homes, and the Gestapo took him and the other Jews and shot them in the middle of the street.


Source: R. Zeev Arye Rabiner, in Yahadut latviya (Judaism in Latvia) (Tel Aviv, 1953), pp. 376-77.

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