Rabbi Herschel Feigelstock, an educator who narrowly escaped the Nazis in his native Austria, was imprisoned in a wartime internment camp in Canada, taught Judaic studies in Yiddish to Jewish public-school children and then served as a pillar of the Montreal Jewish community as a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary for three-quarters of a century, passed away on Nov. 25. He was 98 years old.
Born in Vienna to R. Avrohom and Gittel Feigelstock in 1922, Herschel (Reuven Tzvi Yehuda) Feigelstock grew up in the very traditional but decidedly non-Chassidic Viennese Orthodox Jewish community. His father was a learned businessman who taught Torah every morning and evening, and who lectured for several hours every Shabbat.
When he had the means, R’ Avrohom’s children were privately tutored in Talmud in the morning and learned secular subjects from an observant Jewish teacher in the afternoon, going twice a year to be tested in a public school. When his business suffered amid growing anti-Semitism in the early 1930s, other students joined the Feigelstock children to help defray the costs.
When the Sixth Rebbe—Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory—visited Vienna for health reasons in the mid-1930s, Avrohom Feigelstock arranged for a group of students, including his son Herschel, to visit the Rebbe where he was staying at the Hotel Continental on Praterstrasse. In a 2015 interview with Chabad.org, Feigelstock recalled how the boys stood in a semi-circle around the Rebbe’s table, then passed by his seat one by one and kissed his hand.
“He ... spoke to us lovingly, with such care and devotion,” he remembered.
Herschel’s second encounter with the Sixth Rebbe took place at around the same time. Word went out that the Rebbe would be reciting a maamar, a Chassidic discourse, in the lobby of his hotel. Young Herschel, then just around bar mitzvah age, went with a fellow student and joined the crowd of listeners.
During those visits, he also encountered the Sixth Rebbe’s son-in-law and successor the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneersohn, of righteous memory.
“I remember that he looked very young. He struck me as an anomaly,” recalled Feigelstock some 70 years later. “On one hand, he wore a gray suit, a gray fedora with a down-turned brim and a wristwatch. These were seen as ‘modern’ in our community, where black homburgs or other hats with upturned brims were expected, as were pocket watches. Yet, it was very clear that he was devoted to Chassidism in a way that few young men were. While some of the older men wore silk kapotes [long black coats] on Shabbat, almost none of the younger fellows did. Yet here was a man with a gray hat who was particular to wear the traditional Shabbat silk. It was very striking.”
Escaped to England, Imprisoned in Canada
With the outbreak of World War II, the family escaped to Budapest. Since they were not legally allowed to remain there, Avrohom Feigelstock arranged passage for his sons to go alone to England. It would be many years until they’d be reunited with their parents, who managed to escape to Uruguay and then make their way to New York, where they reunited in 1948.
In England, the boys studied in a yeshivah with other refugees. Despite their being Jewish refugees from Nazi Austria, in 1940 the Feigelstock were arrested by British authorities—as Austrian nationals they were viewed as potential enemies—and placed in an internment camp. Eventually, they were transferred to camps in Canada, where they were ultimately released.
Once free, their first stop was at the newly established Chabad yeshivah in Montreal, where they were warmly welcomed by the nine young war refugees who had recently come to Canada from Poland by way of Japan and China.
“I had a Chassidic soul, and was drawn to the Chabad yeshivah and their inspired way of serving G‑d,” recalled Feigelstock. “By 1943, I became a student in the Chabad yeshivah in Montreal. There were now 10 of us—the nine Polish boys, who were in their early 20s, and me, barely 20 years old.
“They were alone in the world and very busy teaching younger children in the afternoon school they had founded. Still, they kept rigorously to the yeshivah study schedule.”
Both the Sixth Rebbe and the Rebbe were encouraging and very involved in every aspect of their work.
In 1945, Feigelstock began teaching Judaic-studies classes in Yiddish to public school students, in what would soon grow into a full-day Jewish school. It was around that time that Chabad of Montreal purchased its first center, on Park Avenue.
A Rich Family Life
In 1949, he married Sara Winter, a native of McKeesport, Pa., whose parents maintained their fealty to living a full Jewish life and helping others despite their poverty and isolation.
Already as a young girl, she would frequently write to the Sixth Rebbe and receive many answers in return. Under the Rebbe’s guidance, Sara began to host a weekly Shabbat gathering—Mesibos Shabbos—for local children. At the age of 12, she left home to attend Jewish day school in New York. After graduating at 16, she became a preschool teacher at the Chabad school, Yeshivat Achei Tmimim in Pittsburgh, where her family now lived.
The young couple planned to live in Montreal, though struggled to find an apartment in the post-war housing crisis. They wrote to the Rebbe, who told them, a palatz darf men nisht—“a palace is not needed.” Those words would guide them in the decades ahead, living a rich spiritual life with few physical luxuries.
In 1953, the rabbi was appointed principal of the day school.
The Feigelstock home was always open to guests—some who stayed a few days and others who stayed a year or two. For their 10 children, this was a normal part of life; they never wondered why there was a parade of people coming through their door, never asked how everyone knew “the Feigelstock door is never locked, even at night.”
Beyond the school, the Feigelstocks organized Mesibos Shabbos gatherings and plays for children around the holidays and a day camp. Everything received a boost when they were joined by Russian Chassidim who managed to leave the Soviet Union after World War II. The day camp led to the founding of the Gan Israel overnight camp outside of Montreal. Over time, the Lubavitch Youth Organization, led by Rabbi Berel Mockin, expanded its activities. Today, Montreal island is home to more than 30 Chabad centers.
At times, the pressures of leading the yeshivah became too great, and the Feigelstock wished to step down from the helm.
Feigestrock took the train to New York and requested to meet the Rebbe in order to tender his resignation. He entered the study after midnight and laid out the difficulties he was encountering. The Rebbe smiled and replied: “My father-in-law would say that the hour between 12 and one is a ‘foolish hour.’ But such silliness I’ve never heard. If I knew this is why you wanted to meet me, I would have never let you in.” He continued in his position until 1994 and then went on to serve as the president of the school’s board of directors.
Predeceased by a son, Menachem Mendel Feigelstock, in 2008, and his wife in 2016, he is survived by their children: Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Feigelstock, Shternie Greisman, Rivky Teitelbaum, Rabbi Avrohom Feigelstock, Chaya Medalie, Schneur Zalman Feigelstock, Sholom Ber Feigelstock, Devorah Leah Davidson and Alter Yehoshua Feigelstock; in addition to many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
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