BDE: Rav Shmuel Horowitz z"l, the Longtime Gabbai of Bobover Rebbes

Boro Park – We are saddened to inform of the petira of Rav Shmuel Horowitz z"l, the longtime gabbai of Bobover rebbes and a talmid chacham in his own right. He was 91.

Reb Shmuel was the main gabbai for the past three rebbes in Bobov — Rav Shlomo zt”l, Rav Naftali Tzvi zt”l and ybl”c Rav Bentzion Halberstam. He served them with loyalty, sincerity and bittel.

Reb Shmuel was born in 1929 to Rav Shlomo Zalman, the Potoker rav, in a town in Tarnopol near Butchatch. He learned under his grandfather, Rav Moshe Horowitz, a sixth-generation descendant, ben acher ben, from the Baal Shem Tov.

World War II broke out shortly before his bar mitzvah and the family fled the area, finding shelter in a bunker. He survived the war and his grandfather sent him to learn in the yeshiva established in Paris by Rav Mottel Pogromansky. He then arrived in the United States and studied in the Mirrer yeshiva in Flatbush recently opened by Rav Avrohom Kalmanowitz.

Reb Shmuel was a diligent student and developed into a talmid chacham.

Reb Shmuel became attracted to Bobov after his marriage to Charna Breina, a daughter of Reb Tuvia Halperin of Woodridge. He was also close to many tzaddikim in New York, particularly the Skvere rebbe, the Satmar rebbe, the elder Kapishnitzer rebbe, the late Skulener rebbe, the Boyaner rebbe and Rav Mottel, the Vizhnitzer rebbe of Monsey who was his mesader kiddushin.

Reb Shmuel’s first Shabbos in Bobov coincided with the sholom zochor of the current rebbe. He stayed there and eventually became the main gabbai to the rebbes.

“He was the closest person to the Bobover ruv Rav Shlomo, he was the closest person to the Bobover ruv Rav Naftali Tzvi and he was the closest person to ybl”c Rabbeinu shlita,” a grandson told boropark24.com.

He is survived by two sons, Reb Betzalel and Reb Yosef Tuvia.

Yehi zichro boruch.