Yahrzeit: Rav Chaim Elazar (ben Tzvi Hirsch) Shapira of Munkacs, the Minchas Elazar, (1871-1937)

Yahrzeit: Rav Chaim Elazar (ben Tzvi Hirsch) Shapira of Munkacs, the Minchas Elazar, (1871-1937). He was a fifth generation descendent of the founder of the Dinov dynasty, Rav Tzvi Elimelech (the Bnei Yisas’char). He learned under his father, the Stryzower Rebbe, author of Darkei Teshuvah on Yoreh De’ah. He succeeded his father as Rav of Munkacs in 1914. Munkacs (or Munkacevo) for centuries the capital of Carpathian Russia , belonged to Hungary before World War I and to Czechoslovakia when that country was created after World War I. He had no children with his first wife, and they decided to divorce. His second wife bore him one daughter, Frimet. From his youth and on, he completed the entire Talmud Bavli and Yerushalmi every two years. He was a prolific author. In addition to Minchas Elazar, he wrote Nimukei Orach Chaim, Os VeShalom on the laws of tefillin and milah, and many other sefarim. In 1930, he fulfilled a lifelong desire and visited Eretz Yisrael with his 13 year old cousin and son in law to be, Baruch Yerachmeil Yehoshua Rabinowicz . Sadly the Munkacser died only four years after his daughter’s wedding in 1933. Soon after his petira, most of the 15,000 Munkatch Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. Rav Barukh, his son in law, – after saving thousands and unsuccessfully attempting to convince other Chassidim to go with him -- made aliyah, and later established a kehilla in Sao Paulo , Brazil , remaining for fifteen years. He then returned to Israel , where he became the Rabbi of Cholon and later established a Beis Medrash in Petach Tikvah which he led until his passing in 1999. Source: http://ezrashi.blogspot.com/2012/05/