Rabbi Reuven Zvi Blau, Dushinsky Elder, Dies at 99

Rabbi Reuven Zvi Blau, one of the last surviving students of the founding Dushinsky Rebbe and a revered elder of Jerusalem's Dushinsky Hasidic community, passed away Tuesday morning at age 99. He would have celebrated his 100th birthday on the upcoming Simchat Torah holiday.

Born in the Austrian town of Zehlheim to Rabbi Yechiel Blau, a prominent community leader, the young Reuven Zvi immigrated to pre-state Palestine in 1940 with his family on one of the final certificates obtained before the war closed escape routes. Among their fellow passengers aboard the ship was Rabbi Aharon Rota, known as the Shomer Emunim Rebbe.

During the Sukkot holiday voyage across the Mediterranean, the group found themselves one person short of a minyan. Though not yet bar mitzvah age, young Reuven Zvi was instructed by the Shomer Emunim to join the minyan. The Rebbe told the boy's father: "If you want your sons to grow up G-d-fearing, settle in Jerusalem." Upon arriving in Jaffa and witnessing widespread Chillul Shabbos, the family immediately moved to Jerusalem's Batei Ungarin neighborhood, heeding that advice.

In Jerusalem, Blau enrolled in the yeshiva of Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Dushinsky, the chief rabbi who established the Eidah HaChareidis rabbinical court and shaped Jerusalem's Hasidic community. He quickly became a close student and personal attendant to the Rebbe, known in Yiddish as a "hoiz bachur", a trusted young man who served in the rabbi's household. He remained among the very last living students from the yeshiva's founding generation.

During the 1948 War of Independence, when Shmuel HaNavi Street became a front line near the Mandelbaum Gate, Rabbi Dushinsky was forced to relocate to a hotel in central Jerusalem. He entrusted Blau with keys to his residence to safeguard the property. On one visit, the young attendant discovered the home had been broken into and filed a police report.

On Passover eve 1948, under heavy shelling, Blau and his friend Mendel Hersh Rosenberg risked their lives walking through the bombardment to retrieve the Rebbe's Passover dishes from the endangered residence and bring them to the hotel. In gratitude, Rabbi Dushinsky invited his devoted students to join his modest Seder that year. Blau remained at his teacher's side until the end: he obtained special government travel permits during the siege to be with the Rebbe in Tel Aviv for Rosh Hashanah 1949, just two weeks before the rabbi's passing, and prayed beside him on Yom Kippur at Shaare Zedek Hospital during what would be the Rebbe's final Day of Atonement.

Blau married the daughter of Rabbi Aharon Kinstlicher, whose father had served as chief rabbi of the town of Seben.

After his teacher's death, he became devoted to the next Dushinsky Rebbe, Rabbi Yisroel Moshe Dushinsky, and subsequently to the current Dushinsky leader. Even in advanced old age, he insisted on walking from his home on Strauss Street to spend time in the Rebbe's presence.

To support his family, Blau established "R.Z. Blau," a company supplying office equipment and writing materials on Levush Mordechai Street in the heart of the Geula neighborhood. For over fifty years, the shop became a Jerusalem institution, providing supplies and religious books to Torah schools, yeshivas, and educational institutions throughout Israel. He conducted his business with integrity and a cheerful demeanor.

He served on the board of the Beit Yosef Tzvi Dushinsky yeshiva, contributed substantial personal funds to community institutions, and during budget crises personally loaned significant sums to ensure teachers received their salaries on time.

In recent years his health declined, but even when hospitalized, sedated, and on a ventilator, witnesses reported that when stories about his beloved teacher Rabbi Dushinsky were recounted at his bedside, tears would stream from his eyes.

He is survived by his son Rabbi Aharon Blau, a community builder and philanthropist in London, a daughter, and grandchildren and great-grandchildren following in his path.

The funeral procession departed Tuesday at noon from the main study hall and Beit Yosef Tzvi yeshiva at 52 Shmuel HaNavi Street in Jerusalem, proceeding to Har HaMenuchot cemetery, where he was laid to rest beside his grandfather, the chief rabbi of Seben.