Memory Lane: Rav Alter Avrohom Eidel Poplack

Rav Poplack had an incredible life story, and resided for many years in Boro Park of yore.    

Olkenick

Alter Avorhom Eidel was born in Olkenick, Lithuania (about 50 km from Vilna) to his father, Reb Shmuel Leib and his mother. From the Olkenick Yizkor book we learn that Alter was among the intelligent boys in the town who helped establish a library where all the intellectuals of Olkenick would come to satisfy their thirst for knowledge.  

After learning in the yeshivos of the region, he journeyed to the great yeshiva in Slabodka, where he was the roommate of none other than Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky. Rav Yaakov’s hasmodoh was legendary in Slabodka, and each night he would learn without letup, until his would fall asleep fully clothed, out of sheer exhaustion. It was his roommate, Alter Poplack, who would take off his shoes and cover him with a blanket every night.

Alter’s father preceded him on the journey to America, while he remained back in Slabodka. Reb Shmuel Leib found work as a butcher in Bellingham, Washington, a town near Seattle.

In 1919, Reb Alter married Henna Trakeniski from Vilna, and settled in the big city. They soon made their way to America to join his parents. Their oldest child, Eliyahu Moshe Poplack, was born aboard the ship—hours before it docked in Seattle— though in American waters. Grandchildren remember him being called by the litvishe pronunciation “Elle-Maishe.”

Initially making their way to Bellingham—residing at 2334 Lincoln Street in that town— they soon realized that there wasn’t much of a Jewish community there, so they relocated to the city of Seattle. Searching for work, Rav Alter began work as a Hebrew teacher for the oldest grade in the Talmud Torah—but he did far more than occupy the children in the after-public-school hours; he shaped countless children indelibly. 

He sent a number of these early talmidim to learn in Yeshiva in New York. Some of them became Rabbonim.

Boro Park

Having sent their sons and daughter to learn in New York, the Poplacks soon followed. They settled in the same building as Rav Aharon Kotler, zt”l—4701 15th Avenue. There, he grew close to the Rosh Yeshiva, and it was a relationship he prized for all his life.

At their humble apartment in Boro Park, the Poplack’s received their grandchildren who were growing up all around the area. “I was a young child,” recalls rabbi Goldin. “But I vividly recall how my Zeidy’s primary interest was in my Gemoro learning. He would always take out a Gemoro and learn with/farher me.” “At the same time, he was a loving zeide who smiled a lot to his grandchildren. His granddaughter recalls. 

When they were nearing retirement, Rav Poplack fulfilled a lifelong dream of moving to Eretz Yisroel, where they would remain for the remainder of their lives. They settled in Bnei Brak, where he had the pleasure and the reverent honor of living near the Chazon Ish—and be reunited with yet more of his Slabodka chaverim.  

One of the pesokim that he received from the Chazon Ish is quoted in numerous teshuvah seforim—namely, the heter to use a hearing aid on Shabbos which had been set before Shabbos.