BDE: Harav Nachum Segal Horowitz, zt”l, Rov of She’ris Yisroel, Transmitter of Tradition

Early this morning, we lost a golden link to the past, with the passing of Harav Hatzadik Rav Nachum Tzvi Segal Horowitz, a scion of great dynasty, a rov in Williamsburg for eighty years, who lived his last years at the home of his daughter in Boro Park. He was 97.

He was born in 1925 in Galicia, to his father, Rav Yaakov Yitzchok Horowitz, the Riglitzer Ruv, who traced his lineage to the holy Ropshitzer Ruv, and his mother, Rebbetzin Chana, the daughter of Rav Chaim Yitzchok Yeruchom, the Altstadter Ruv of Altstadt-Vienna.

Fleeing the Nazis, the family made their way through France, where their beloved father was niftar (they transferred his aron to Eretz Yisroel two years after the war). The four brothers arrived in America in 1941, when Rav Nachum was a young boy of 15, and he enrolled in Torah Vodaath, where he was beloved by his illustrious rebbeim. He was not the only rebbishe einikel learning in Torah Vodaath at that time, and would likely have befriended the few other beard-and-payos-clad bachurim.

He married the daughter of the Bardiyover Rebbe, Rav Yekusiel Yehuda Halberstam, a scion of the Sanzer dynasty, and along with his brothers, led the She’eris Yisroel Shul on Keap Street in Williamsburg. Following his older brother’s move to Monsey in the 1970’s, he took over the leadership of the Shul, until recently.

Throughout his life, he was known as a great talmid chochom, and a transmitter of stories and traditions of the tsaddikim of yore. He could sit for hours upon hours giving over the Torah and the stories of the holy tzaddkim, many of whom were his ancestors.

He leaves behind a golden legacy of sons, sons-in-law, and grandchildren who are rabbonim and talmidei chachomim, a true credit to their patriarch who arrived in America eighty years ago—establishing a holy oasis of Torah and chassidus in the spiritual wilderness.

The levaya in Boro Park will take place at his last residence, 1559 54, at 11:30