Last week, the Yeshiva organized a memorial event and Torah study evening in honor of the cherished father of our Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Moshe Shenvald, of blessed memory.
Rabbi Moshe Shenvald, born in 1925 (5695) in Szarvas, Hungary, attended the Jewish Teachers' Seminary in Budapest.
In 1944 (5704), he was deported to Auschwitz and later transferred to the Gross-Rosen concentration camps.
After miraculously surviving the Holocaust with G-d's help, he joined the Bnei Akiva "Bricha" (Escape) movement, helping to clandestinely rescue and immigrate Jewish youth to the Land of Israel. He eventually immigrated to Israel himself.
He devoted his life to education, first teaching at Sde Ya'akov and at the Oman Institution for immigrant youth in Afula.
He subsequently joined the IDF, completed basic training with the Golani Brigade, and served in the Military Rabbinate first as a Religious NCO and later as a Religious Officer with Wing 1 of the Israeli Air Force.
He continued to serve in the reserves during both the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War.
Rabbi Shenvald established the Shaul HaMelech School in Beit She'an, along with the Birav School and the ARI School in Safed (Tzfat).
In recognition of his lifelong dedication to education, he received the Distinguished Religious Educator Award and was also named an Honorary Citizen of Safed.
A Holocaust survivor, he also experienced the profound grief of losing his son, Staff Sergeant Meir Shenvald, of blessed memory (Hy"d), who died while serving the State of Israel.
During the memorial evening:
The Rosh Yeshiva delivered a shiur and address entitled "My Father, of Blessed Memory: From Auschwitz to National Rebirth - with Love."
His brother-in-law, the psychologist Dr. Asher Malka, gave a lecture on "Various Customs Observed on a Yahrzeit."
The Rosh Yeshiva's brother, Rabbi Avri Shenvald, completed a Siyum on Tractate Horayot.
The evening concluded with the study of Mishnah in memory of Rabbi Moshe Shenvald, of blessed memory.
