Learn about Reb Aryeh, the ‘Prisoners’ Rabbi’ of pre-state Israel who visited lepers
Identifying troops’ bodies via a kabbalistic ritual and comforting the jailed, downtrodden and sick, the beloved Aryeh Levin earned a reputation for piety in early 1900s Jerusalem
Less than two months after the United Nations voted for two states to be established in post-British Mandate Palestine — one for Arabs and one for Jews — local Arabs laid siege to four tiny kibbutzim in the Etzion Bloc south of Jerusalem.
On January 15, 1948, after the humanitarian situation had become desperate, a platoon of 35 young men from the Palmach, an elite Jewish paramilitary fighting force, set out for the bloc with medical supplies and weapons for the settlements’ defense. Leading the group was 25-year-old commander Danny Mas.
No one can know for sure how they were discovered the next morning, but most believe that not long before reaching their destination they encountered two Arab women out gathering wood. Leaving the women untouched, the Palmach force continued on; apparently the women ran off and sounded the alarm. During the bitter, blatantly uneven battle that followed between three dozen Palmach troops and hundreds of armed Arabs, every single Jewish soldier in the platoon was killed. The platoon has gone down in Israeli history as the “lamed-heh” — the number “35” according to the Hebrew alphanumerical system.
Several days after the battle, and although the bodies had been badly mutilated by the Arabs, the men were buried in a common grave within the bloc. Along with them was a map describing where each man lay at rest.
After the war, in November of 1949, the men were re-interred in the newly established Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery. However, the map was lost and 12 of the soldiers could not be identified. A solution was found when a Jerusalem rabbi, Aryeh Levin, held a late-night ceremony called the “goral HaGra” (the Vilna Gaon’s lottery) in his tiny yeshiva. He opened an ancient Bible at random 11 different times, until pages offered a clue as to the identity of one of the soldiers. With 11 bodies identified, it was obvious who had been the 12th fallen soldier.
There could hardly be a human being more saintly than the righteous and compassionate Rabbi Aryeh, as he was fondly called by all who knew him. Reb Aryeh is known far and wide as the Prisoners’ Rabbi, for along with the sick, downtrodden and hopeless of Jerusalem he also ministered tirelessly to Jews incarcerated in the British Central Prison during the British Mandate — some of them thieves and murderers, but many others members of the Jewish underground fighting for independence.
Born near Bialystok (formerly in Russia, now in Poland) in 1885, Reb Aryeh immigrated to Palestine at the age of 20. He lived with his wife and seven surviving children in an unprepossessing apartment with a minuscule kitchen and two large rooms. This humble home was located in an early neighborhood adjacent to Jaffa Road, the main axis linking the port city of Jaffa with Jerusalem.
Called Mishkenot Yisrael for a biblical passage in the Book of Numbers (24:5), it was established in 1875 as one of the first neighborhoods outside the Old City. Surrounded by stone walls, the neighborhood looked like a fortress and had gates that could be tightly shut at night. This provided protection from highway robbers, and from the wolves and jackals that roamed the open fields outside the Old City walls. On the outer walls of several of the houses are large figure eights made of iron, used to reinforce the beams.
In 1927 Reb Aryeh began visiting the British Mandate-era Jerusalem Central Prison (now the Museum of Underground Prisoners) and eventually one of the cells was transformed into a synagogue on the Sabbath and Jewish holy days. Because of his phenomenal memory, Reb Aryeh was able to pass messages back and forth between people incarcerated in the jail and families whose addresses he was instantly able to recall.
But there remained the problem of delivering written messages to the prisoners. So Reb Aryeh’s wife Hannah, considered as virtuous and saintly as her husband, sewed deep pockets in his rabbinical frock to prevent the messages from rustling as he walked. She also prepared seams in his clothes for the dozens of missives the prisoners sent outside the walls with her husband, who would then walk all over the city until they were delivered. (Reb Aryeh was asked to become the prison’s official chaplain in 1931. He accepted the position on the condition that he wouldn’t be paid.)
Long before he became known as the Prisoners’ Rabbi because of his devotion to the incarcerated Jews, Reb Aryeh was already paying regular calls on patients at the city’s lepers’ asylum. His interest in the asylum began one day when he was praying at the Western Wall. Approaching a woman who was crying pitifully, he asked her the meaning of such sorrow. She replied that her son was an incurable leper tucked away in an institution and forever lost. The institution — now known as the Hansen House — was called Jesus Hilfe (Jesus’s Help) and designed by renowned German-Christian architect Conrad Schick.
Having made up his mind to visit the boy, the rabbi was shocked to find 12 Jewish patients at the institution and to learn that all were cared for by German Christian nuns. The Jews were ecstatic at his visit — apparently it had been years since anyone had come to call on them. Then and there Reb Aryeh decided to return every week, when he would read from the Bible and speak to each patient.
On the Jewish High Holidays, the rabbi’s sons walked with him to the leper hospital, where they would blow the shofar (ram’s horn). They scorned warnings that they could catch the dreaded leprosy while in the hospital, in the belief that when you do a good deed the Lord watches over you.
Early in the morning, Reb Aryeh would attend prayers at Zoharei Hama (First Rays of the Sun), a synagogue located on the fourth floor of Jerusalem’s first skyscraper. Built at the beginning of the 20th century by Russian-American immigrant Rabbi Shmuel Levi, it began as a three-story edifice that grew, over the years, to five stories and was known for its hospitality to indigent pilgrims. What also makes this building famous is its huge five-meter (16-foot) sundial, put up in 1918 by a Jerusalem rabbi who taught himself astronomy.
Reb Aryeh prayed often at the historic Ahdut Yisrael Synagogue. Situated on the second floor of the Sephardi Orphanage House, near the rabbi’s humble abode, the synagogue was established in 1937 by a religious nationalistic movement founded the previous year. Parishioners were fighters from the pre-state underground, along with many of the movement’s sympathizers. Dedicated to the memory of the 12 Jewish underground fighters executed by the British during their mandate in Palestine, the synagogue boasts a slik, or hidden weapons cache, just beneath the Torah ark.
From some time after the 1948 War of Independence until his death in 1969, Reb Aryeh served as the synagogue’s rabbi; today that position is held by Reb Aryeh’s grandson, the charming, American-born Rabbi Benjamin Levin, also known as Rav Benji.
Growing up, Rav Benji spent many of his summers in Jerusalem with his grandfather and was repeatedly amazed at how venerated Reb Aryeh was by everyone they met. He seemed to be everywhere at once, offering comfort, helping people in need, or going to prayers at a variety of venues.
Rav Benji tells of a Sabbath when he and his grandfather were walking on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem and a car went by. “I was 14,” he says, “thinking how terrible this was, desecrating the holiest city in the world on the holiest day of the week.” But Reb Aryeh, although he knew exactly what was going on, hated bad-mouthing anyone. “So he looked at me and said, ‘Binyaminke, so much saving of a life,’” thus giving the driver the benefit of the doubt, as it is permissible to break the Sabbath for matters of life and death.
One of my all-time favorite stories about Reb Aryeh concerns a charitable, righteous woman who was raising small children alone. One day, during weekly rounds at a Jerusalem hospital, the rabbi came upon the woman lying unconscious. She was suffering from a serious illness and had been surrounded by curtains, indicating that her case was hopeless.
Too preoccupied to care whether or not he was making a spectacle of himself, Reb Aryeh spent the next hour alternately scolding the Almighty for his abandonment of the woman and sobbing a prayer that God would be merciful and compassionate. Then he left. Soon afterward, the woman awoke, asking for water and food. She recovered completely, for no apparent reason. Anyone who knew the saintly Reb Aryeh, however, had a ready explanation.
Aviva Bar-Am is the author of seven English-language guides to Israel.
Shmuel Bar-Am is a licensed tour guide who provides private, customized tours in Israel for individuals, families and small groups.
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