Memory Lane: Rav Shloime Hakohen Kleinman

Rav Shloime Kleinman served as the rav of Knesses Israel/Hebrew Community of Boro Park, located at 1323 42nd Street. 

Veretzky 

Shloime was born in the year 1906 to his father, Rav Yitzchok Aizik, and his mother was Chaya Sarah, the daughter of a wealthy philanthropist by the name of Reb Yisroel Pollack. Young Shloime learned under the family’s mechutan, the Margaretener Rov. 

When the Nazis came into town, they were announcing their intentions to massacre all the Jews of the town. Everyone should run to the bigger towns such a Chust, and others. But Rav Yitzchok Aizik refused to leave, fearing that he wouldn’t be able to have his tefillin and keep others mitzvos there. This ended up saving the lives of his entire family, because the Nazis never did come to these tiny hamlets. 

Knesses Israel 

Following the war, Rav Yitzchok Aizik went to Tzfas, where he revived the Margaretener Yeshiva. The yeshiva had been established by his mechutan, the Margaretener Ruv, Rav Weinberger. He would remain in Eretz Yisroel, while a number of his children went to America, Rav Shloime among them.  

Family members recall how Rav Kleinman purchased the Knesses Yisroel shul from a membership that was moving out or passing away, and proceeded to transform it with a certain shtiebel feel. He replaced the pews that were a fixture in the old shul, and he renovated the place. 

“We davened at my uncle’s Shul,” recalls a nephew, “and I recall the way he would be encouraging to each person who came through the doors, guiding them on all sorts of life matters. He was especially strict about not talking during davening. ‘I don’t need a large minyan, only ten people who don’t talk,’ he would say.” 

“The shul was a mix of the old and the new,” recalls one former member. Following the passing of Rav Kleinman, the shul was sold to the Skverer chassidim who have davened there, and hosted a yeshiva on the premises, ever since—continuing the glorious legacy of Torah and tefillah of this building. 

Camp Hadar Hatorah 

An additional endeavor of Rav Kleinman was the camp that he founded—a place where boys, and in later years girls, of the early years found a special environment of rejuvenation away from the city streets. 

Reb Moshe Metzger, the legendary Shammas of Shomrei Shabbos in Boro Park, harbors the fondest memories of Rabbi Kleinman from his days as a camper in Hadar Hatorah. “First of all, Rabbi Kleinman was my rebbi in Yeshiva Be’er Shmuel. My father wanted me to learn there because they taught in Yiddish. He was an extremely vareme Yid, exceptionally warm, and when he taught, you listened. Camp Hadar Hatorah was in Loch Sheldrake, and it was an amazing place, and Rav Shloime knew how to run a camp—firm but warm.  

“He involved himself in every aspect of the camp. From ensuring that the food was plentiful and delicious (Rabbi Pffeifer from Yeshiva Torah Vodaath was the cook), to keeping up the grounds, and making sure that we had the best staff,” Reb Moshe recalls. One of these staff members was none other than Rabbi Shmuel Kunda, z”l, and there were a number of others who brought their talent to Hadar Hatorah in those early years and went on to gain fame in later years. 

“When I became bar mitzvah,” remembers Reb Moshe Metzger,” I would go to his house to learn my pshetel. I was able to recite the whole thing by heart because he taught it to me so well,” he relates. “What struck me about his home was that his home was filled with seforim—wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling—and he was an exceptional talmid chochom. Everyone respected him, and he inspired a level of reverence from all who encountered him.”   

Rav Kleinman was niftar in the year 1997—at the age of 90 years old—and he was laid to rest in the Spinka chelka on Har Hazeisim—which is a story in and of itself. 

A nephew of Rav Shloime relates: “When my father passed away, we called the Spinka chevra kaddisha, asking if my father could be buried in their chelkah. They answered, “if it’s a Kleinman, there is room.” The same applied to his brother, Rav Shloime Hakohen, who was buried in the same Spinka section—invoking the generations of connection between the Spinka dynasty and the illustrious Kleinman family.