Memory Lane: R’ Dovid Turkel

Agudas Yisroel on Fourteenth Avenue was a bastion of askonus and rebuilding from the churban in the Boro Park neighborhood. It featured among its mispalelim such legends as Rabbi Moshe Sherer, Rav Simcha Elberg, Reb Hillel Seidman, and so many esteemed individuals too numerous to recount. 

Among this close-knit group was the veteran Agudist Reb Dovid Turkel who was the president of the Agudah on 14th Avenue for many years and a prominent, renowned askan in Boro Park and beyond. He also joined with prominent Borough Park askonim to start Bais Yaakov of Boro Park where he served as president in the early years.

Vienna

Reb Dovid was born in Galicia in the year 1912 to a prominent and aristocratic family of Ruziner chassidim who were widely-known in Galicia. With the outbreak of World War One, the family followed many Galician Yidden—along with their leaders, Rabbonim, and Admorim—to Vienna. 

Here, young Dovid absorbed the aura and the spirit of these exalted Yidden, and they would remain with him for a lifetime. As he grew older, he gravitated toward the Agudah Youth Group in Vienna and soon became one of its most popular members and askonim. 

Rescue From the Jaws 

As the Nazis took over the city of Vienna, throngs of Yidden were seeking to get out—with nowhere to go. This is when Reb Dovid jumped into the fray, the next step in his avodas hakodesh. The young man traveled to America where he began working to procure visas and immigration documents for Viennese Yidden—an endeavor to which he applied all his energies and diplomatic talents, ultimately being successful in helping many Yidden emigrate in time. Many of these refugees stayed at the Agudah refugee home in Williamsburg.   

This work placed him in contact with the local Agudah leaders, namely Reb Elimelech (Mike) Tress, together with whom he threw himself into Hatzolah endeavor—and this operation became one of the Agudah’s first such efforts. 

This led to a lifelong friendship between Reb Dovid and Mike Tress—and the two would remain associated in their work on behalf of the Agudah for many years to come. 

In order to be able to remain in America, Reb Dovid needed to go to England—an opportunity that he used to be able to help more Yidden get out of Vienna. While there, he married his wife, a daughter of the renowned Zauderer family.  (They had gotten engaged the night before he had to escape Vienna). Theirs was the first refugee chasuna in London.

Boro Park  

Returning to America, he went into business for himself. In the meantime, WWII broke out, and then it was impossible for people to leave Europe any longer. However, he remained extremely active in the branches of Agudas Yisroel in America, working closely with Mike Tress and Reb Moshe Sherer. There was not an Agudah meeting, small or large, at which he was not present. 

Soon, he joined together with others in founding the first Agudah branch in Boro Park. He would serve as its longtime president, and always remained one of its important pillars. 

When Agudath Israel of America reorganized itself in the 1950’s, Reb Dovid Turkel was one of its primary askonim. In this capacity, he expended many efforts on behalf of the Torah Yishuv in Eretz Yisroel, and was in constant contact with the representatives of the Torah community including Rav Yitzchok Meir Levin and Rabbi Menachem Porush whom the Turkel’s hosted their home upon their visits to Boro Park. 

During the 1960’s, Agudath Israel found itself in a financial crisis, and did not yet have a cadre of supporters that it became fortunate to have in later years. The cousins, Reb Mike Tress and Reb Moshe Sherer, had undertaken enormous projects, and they did not have the financial means to cover it. It was Reb Dovid Turkel who would lead a committee of four individuals—including himself—which steered the Agudah out of the dire financial straits. 

Reb Dovid is remembered by his illustrious Torah family, and all those who knew him, as a model Torah and Agudah Yid, a mokir Rabbanan, an askan, and a yerei Shomayim who dedicated himself entirely to the Klal and to his beloved Agudas Yisroel in Boro Park of yore.