Memory Lane: Rav Moshe Naftoli Ullman

Congregation Shomrei Emuah has been a feature of the Boro Park community since the year 1908. The “downstairs” section has always served as a space for shiurim and additional minyonim. A number of brilliant ga’onim headed the Chevra Shas, and some have been profiled here in the past. It was there that Rav Moshe Naftoli Ullman taught Torah for decades, as he himself learned ceaselessly for his 98 years of life on this earth.

Antwerp

The Ullman family was comprised of generations of prominent rabbonim in Europe. Rav Noach Tzvi was the father of Rav Moshe Naftoli. He was the first rov of the organized Kehillas Hacharedim in Antwerp, Belgium. His father, Rav Shloime Zalman, was the rov of Makava, Hungary, a son-in-law of Rav Bunim Eiger, the Mattesdorfer rov and a talmid muvhak of the Chasam Sofer, and a son of “Rav Sholom Charif” the rov of Lakenbach, Germany, about whom the Chasam Sofer wrote with deep reverence. 

Moshe Naftoli was born in Antwerp in the year 1901. When he was just bar mitzvah, in the year 1914, World War One broke out, and the family escaped to Holland. It was there that tragedy struck when his father Rav Noach Tzvi was niftar. During this time, he was asked to help teach Jewish children there. With this, it can be said, began his lifelong tenure of teaching Torah. 

Unfortunately, due to his father’s passing, Moshe Naftoli was compelled to assist with parnassah at home. At the age of sixteen, he began spending a few hours each day in the diamond exchange. In those early years he resolved firmly that only a portion of the day would be spent in business—a resolution that he would keep until he retired at age eighty-five.    

Saved by the Mitzvah 

In 1932, he married Rochel, the daughter of Reb Yosef Zeidenfrau of Grosswardein, a confidante of the Ahavas Yisroel of Viznitz. Reb Yosef was a distinguished philanthropist who hosted many gedolim of his generation. 

Through an incredible story of his dedication to kibbud eim, Moshe Naftoli came to earn the trust of one Mr. Downing of General Motors in America, and he made him the point man for GM in at the diamond exchange. In 1939, he was invited by Mr. Downing to the World Fair in New York, and once here, he was convinced by a mispalel in Shomrei Emunah who was also a federal judge to remain in America. The judge would arrange for all his immigration papers. 

For all his years, Rav Ullman would relate how his mitzvah of kibbud aim saved him and a number of his family members from the impending Holocaust. The Ullman’s settled in Boro Park, and shortly thereafter began saying a shiur in Shomrei Emunah. Soon, he also started a shiur in Shomrei Shabbos Anshei Novogrod (known as Silkowitz’s) on 50th Street. 

His dedication to the shiurim, and to hasmodoh b’Torah in general, was legendary. People would observe the hours upon hours he spent learning, into the late hours of the evening. When he walked to Williamsburg or Crown Heights for the aufruf of his future sons-in-law, he walked all the way back so he could deliver his pre-mincha shiur. 

For years, he resisted getting a couch or a phone at home, insisting that they were conducive to idleness. From 1940 until 1992 he delivered the shiur with regularity, completing shas b’rabim six-and-a-half times. This is in addition to the many dapim of gemoro that he learned every day on his own. 

Rav Moshe Naftoli was revered by the Admorim and Rabbonim of his time, and even the simple people understood the caliber of this angel within their midst. They would point out to their children their neighbor who’d sit for hours upon hours at the open window immersed in learning. 

On the ninth of Elul of the year 1999, Rav Moshe Naftoli returned his soul to its Maker, leaving behind a multi-branched Torah family, a sefer named Tzeil Ha’eidah, and a glorious legacy of hasmodoh b’Torah and deep yiras Shomayim.

Special thanks to Rav Yosef Perlow, a grandson of Rav Moshe Naftoli, for his assistance with this article.