Memory Lane: Rav Moshe Leib Waldenberg, The Plotzker Rebbe

One of postwar personalities of Boro Park was the Plotzker Rebbe, a ga’on from a city of ga’onim, who resided in the center of Boro Park surrounded by his hundreds of European-imported seforim. 

Warsaw

Rav Moshe Leib was born in Warsaw in the summer of the year 1887. His father was Reb Yaakov Yitzchok, about whom he would later say, “he would stand and learn all night.” His mother was Chana Sura Temersohn who hailed from an illustrious Rabbinic family. Her grandfather was Rav Tzvi of Plotzk, author of Tzemach l’Avrohom on Yalkut Shimoni, which was the first sefer to be printed in Warsaw. He was also a great-great-grandchild of the Mogen Avrohom. The family was also related to Rav Aryeh Leib Tzintz of Plotzk. On account of his Plotzker lineage, he would later be called the Plotzker Rebbe.  

Not much is known to us about his childhood, only of his brilliance that was apparent later in life, and that he merited to have the Sfas Emes put tefillin on him at his bar mitzvah. He married Rivka Ziemba, the sister of the great Rav Menachem Ziemba. The Wildenberg’s were a prominent family in the city, and on the enormous beis hachaim in the city, there are about twenty-five known kevorim of the men alone.  

It was in this elevated milieu that Rav Moshe Leib established his life in Warsaw—spending his days growing in Torah. Four children were born to the Waldenberg’s: Avrohom Dovid, Tovia Meir, Sheindel and Zissel. They, along with their mother, would tragically be lost in the great Churban. 

For all his abilities in Torah, Rav Moshe Leib was unable to earn a living, and so, upon the advice of family members, he left for America where he worked as a fundraiser for Torah institutions in Poland. According to one document around the time of his immigration filing, he worked for “Tiferes Yisroel of Warsaw.” 

Thus, we find Rav Moshe Leib in Los Angeles in the year 1933, as the Yomim Nora’im drew closer: “Rabbi Extends Visit. Rabbi Moses Wildenberg of Warsaw, Poland, who arrived in Los Angeles Thursday in the course of a tour of the Unted States, will remain here over the Jewish holiday period, which begins on the 21st, it was announced yesterday, and during the several weeks he will be here, he will lecture at the orthodox synagogues in this city. He is residing at 703 North Soto Street.” 

Boro Park 

In 1967, as the neighborhood of East New York was deteriorating, the Rebbe sold the shul on Vermont Street, and moved to Boro Park—like so many Jewish residents were doing in those times. 

He was welcomed here by his brother-in-law, Reb Yisroel Weiss, and his family, who would dote upon the Waldenberg’s until their last days. “Whenever we came to visit him, he was always learning, relates a nephew. He would sit there, surrounded by his seforim, and he would farher us whenever we came. 

One of the nieces relate that she named her son for Rav Moshe Leib for the following reason: “when our family arrived in America from Europe, they had lost everyone in the war, and we were on our own. Our uncle Moshe Leib and aunt Rivka signed our affidavit so we could come into the country, and then invited us into their home, where we stayed until we could get acclimated here. We never forgot their generosity, and I sought to repay them in the only way that I could,” she remembers. 

The aforementioned favor would be repaid in kind when the Waldenberg’s would move to Boro Park, and their nephew and his family took care of them until the end of their life.

During his last years, he would daven at the nearby Voideslover Shul, and spending his days surrounded by his seforim, until his passing on 23 Shevat of 1972, following a lifetime dedicated to Torah, culminating in Boro Park of yore.