Zev   William   Safern

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Mr. Safern was a true Ohev Yisrael who loved every Jew and was beloved by all who met him. He was a member of the first graduating class of Yeshiva University, worked in various industries including the New York Stock Exchange, and supported the establishment and the ongoing survival of the State of Israel. He was a Zionist who supported Israel all of this life, including secret work he did for the Hagana in the United States before 1948, and visited his family in Israel regularly. He was a baal chessed and a baal tzedaka, loyally tending to charities such as Clara Hammer's fund to send kosher chickens to needy families in Jerusalem every Shabbos and Yom Tov, and supporting various causes quietly and without fanfare. He leaves behind his wife, Mildred Safern of Forest Hills, children Rise and David Green of Modiin, Israel and Eric and Judy Safern of Dallas, Texas. His grandchildren Dov, Yael, Aryeh and Moshe Green live in Modiin; Jonah and Elisheva Safern live in Dallas.
Hours before his aneurism ruptured on Thanksgiving Day in New York, Zev Safern, z'l, drafted the following essay:
"I was recently invited to attend the dedication ceremony for the beautiful new building housing Congregation Ohr HaTorah in Dallas, Texas. Only seven years ago, this vibrant community held its first services in a private home. Today, after outgrowing four progressively larger facilities, this group of young Orthodox families is finally in their first permanent home. The magnificent new structure was built through the dedicated work of many wonderful people across the Torah world.
The very first speaker on this day was the Congregation's leader - Rabbi Aryeh Feigenbaum. He began with the accepted idea that the two greatest commandments we recognize are Hafotsas HaTorah (spreading Torah knowledge) and Kiddush Hashem (sanctification of the name of G-d).
This thought immediately struck me as a personal directive to continue the task I had undertaken years earlier - the publication of the notes and correspondence of the Rogatchover Gaon - Rabbi Yosef Rosen ZT'L.
When the Gaon passed away in 1936, his daughter Rachel Citron left the safety of her home in Petach Tikva to return to Dvinsk, Latvia for the purpose of assembling the Gaon's many unpublished manuscripts to make them available to future generations of Talmud students. She worked with Rabbi Yisroel Alter Safern-Fuchs (her father's devoted student and successor). They published two volumes before the Nazi onslaught prevented further publication in Europe. With utter destruction approaching, they photographed thousands of pages of the Gaon's notes and hundreds of incoming questions and mailed them weekly in manila envelopes to Rav Alter's granduncle, my father Hirsch Safern, in New York. They begged my father to be sure to deliver everything to the rabbinic authorities for publication.
Shortly after the last envelope was mailed, the Nazis deported the Jews from Dvinsk to Breslau where they were all murdered on June 3rd 1942 and lie together in a mass grave.
We cannot share their Kiddush Hashem but we can surely share in their Hafotsas HaTorah.
The holy task of rescuing this Torah scholarship was begun in 1956 and, working with Rabbi Menachem Kasher z"l, several valuable volumes were published to great acclaim in the Yeshiva world - but 6000 pages have yet to see the light of day. Holocaust survivors and their families - as well as the relatives of the thousands who did not survive - will be anxious to be involved in publishing this material.
Will you help?"
Mr. Safern was niftar within two days of writing this essay and was buried on Har HaMenuchot in his beloved Yerushalayim.
Now, to help further the publication of future volumes of Tzafnas Paneach, please contact his son Eric Safern at 001 (323) 304-0222 or eric@timebytes.com or Avi Malek (his nephew) in Israel at 02-997-5616.
Baruch Dayan HaEmet.