BDE: R’ Mordechai Aaron Moshel, z”l

by YS Gold 

We regret to inform you of the passing of R’ Mordechai Moshel, a pillar of the Stoliner kehillah in America. He was 86 years of age. 

The niftar was born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn in the 1930’s, a time when the area teemed with Yiddishkeit, even as the younger generations were falling away. 

But he was raised on a tradition of mesirus nefesh for Yiddishkeit. His grandfather was the legendary Reb Avrohom Dovid Rosenblatt of Galicia, the shochet of Galveston, who was renowned for his uncompromising approach to Yiddishkeit. He passed this on to his generations of descendants, and young Motty would daven alongside his zeide in the Rayim Ahuvim Shul in Brownsville. 

As a bachur, he gravitated to the Stoliner chassidus, then centered in Williamsburg. For the rest of his life, he would be a dedicated chossid who always gave himself to the welfare of the kehillah, in whatever capacity was needed. 

“He was always a doer,” recalls one admirer. “When the previous Stoliner Rebbe, zt”l, was niftar, R’ Mordechai, who was still a bachur at the time, arranged many details of the Levaya, taking the Rebbe’s table to a carpenter to fashion it into an aron. When the Rebbe was later reinterred in Eretz Yisroel, he was involved in this as well.” 

But no task was beneath him when it came to Yiddishkeit, or kovod beis medrash. For years, he would pack away the seforim and siddurim following davening, even into his older years. 

Those who grew up alongside him recall his meticulousness in davening, saying each word carefully. And for all the things that he did that were known, there are many chassodim and tzeddakos that are unknown, because he preferred to do things b’hatzneiah leches. 

The Levaya will take place at the Stoliner Yeshiva, 1818 54th Street, at 1:15 this afternoon. 

Yehi zichro baruch.