Yehoshua Shneur Zalman Serebryanski

Rabbi Yehoshua Shneur Zalman Serebryanski, known familiarly as Reb Zalman, (Dec 1904-1991-06-15) was an Orthodox rabbi and Mashpia belonging to the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement. He was a follower of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn (1880-1950), the sixth Rebbe of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement, known as "Rebbe Rayatz", and Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, (1902-1994) the seventh Rebbe.

Born in Brahin, Belarus, he was educated there and at the Tomchei Temimim Yeshiva in Rostov-on-Don, and was then sent to organise underground yeshivos in various towns in the USSR. He eventually settled in Kharkov (now the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine), where he met and married Brocha Futerfas, the sister of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Futerfas and artist Hendel Lieberman. He was responsible for the upkeep of the underground yeshivah there.

He was conscripted into the Red Army, but because of his poor health he was assigned to the air defense unit protecting Kharkov. When the city fell to the Germans he made his way to Saratov, and from there to Samarkand, where his family had fled. In 1946, when Polish refugees were allowed to leave the USSR, he and most of his family obtained Polish papers and left for Poland, where he remained for about a year at the request of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, to arrange for the smuggling of messages between him and the Lubavitcher hasidim who remained in the USSR. During this period he was also active in rescuing Jewish children from convents where they had been left by their parents during the war. With the consolidation of Communist power in Poland it was impossible to continue this work, and he moved on to Paris, where he founded the cheder that became the nucleus of the Chabad educational network in Paris.

In 1949, the newly-elected Menzies government relaxed Australia's immigration policies, and several Lubavitcher hasidim obtained visas for Australia. Reb Zalman asked Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn whether he should join them, and was told to go and start a yeshivah there. He landed at Melbourne on 1949-09-12, and the yeshivah began in Shepparton in October.

Serebryanski was one of the four pioneering founders of the Yeshivah community. Together with the late Rabbi Isser Kluwgant, the late Rabbi Shmuel Betzalel Althaus, and the late Rabbi Nochum Zalman Gurewicz, Serebryanski laid the groundwork for what the Yeshivah educational facilities and community are today.

He founded the Yeshivah College High School, first in Shepparton, then in Burwood, and finally in East Saint Kilda. He also founded the Beth Rivkah Ladies College and the Yeshivah Gedolah Rabbinical College.

He won the admiration and love of the entire Melbourne community for his humble, pleasant, soft-spoken demeanour, and kind and caring attitude.

He is survived by his three children, and more than 100 grandchildren, great- and great-great-grandchildren.

References

*http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/jewish-civilisation/resources/talking/shimon-allen.html
*http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/jewish-civilisation/resources/talking/mendel-new.html
*http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/jewish-civilisation/resources/talking/nehama-werdiger.html
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20041205112056/http://www.orzonline.com/RebZalman.asp Obituary by Laibel Wolf]