Rabbi Nachman Elbaum a”h, Gerrer askan and confidante of Gerrer Admurim, passed away recently. He was one of the behind the scenes contact persons between the Rebbe and the Gerrer Admurim. He did his job with absolute secrecy so that even his closest family members know very few details about the fascinating missions he carried out. With his passing, he took those secrets with him.
I know that R’ Nachman Elbaum carried out secret missions between the Beis Yisroel of Ger (1895-1977) and the Rebbe,” said Rabbi Tuvia Blau, who had a special relationship with Ger over the years. R’ Elbaum’s children also said that R’ Nachman was the contact man between the Gerrer Rebbes in general, and the Beis Yisroel in particular, and the Rebbe, and from the Rebbe to them. When we asked whether they know what the missions were about, they did not know. R’ Nachman was a man who kept things to himself.
“Our father was a real keeper of secrets and he never told us anything about his missions,” said his son, R’ Aryeh. “They relied on him a lot and he accomplished much between Ger and Lubavitch. But he never told us what these missions were.”
R’ Nachman’s widow repeated one key line that the Rebbe said to her husband, from which we can imagine how much R’ Nachman accomplished on the various missions from the Rebbe, not always in his name: “I remember that the Rebbe once told him, ‘They won’t listen to me; they will listen to you.’”
As the Gerrer Rebbe put it when he went to console the family during the Shiva, “He did not utter unnecessary words.”
Upon his passing, Beis Moshiach set out to trace the life story of the man who took many secrets about Ger and Chabad to the next world with him.
IN THE SIROTA HOME
R’ Nachman was born over ninety years ago, in Poland. His father was R’ Yitzchok and he merited to have the Imrei Emes (1866-1948) as his sandak. The Elbaum family was Ger but his father was also drawn to Breslov.
When R’ Nachman grew older he learned in a number of yeshivos, including the yeshiva in Baranowitz. During World War II he escaped with his father and after much suffering and wandering they arrived in distant Tashkent in Uzbekistan.
Due to the exigencies of the time, his father was unable to raise him and gave him temporarily to R’ Mordechai and Mrs. Rivka Sirota who were known for their hospitality. They opened their home to Jewish refugees, some of whom lived in their home temporarily and some of whom lived there more permanently for a year or two or more.
R’ Mordechai and his wife took care of all his needs, and in their home he absorbed authentic Chassidus thanks to the farbrengens that took place there, which were attended by distinguished Lubavitcher Chassidim.
At that time, the family of Rabbi Levi Yitzchok Bender, a distinguished Breslover Chassid, was also living in the Sirota home for two years. R’ Bender’s daughter, Ettel, later told about the travails of the boy Nachman:
“Once, when I came home (i.e. the Sirota home), I saw a sickly, pale child who was ill with typhus. I recoiled in fear of contagion of this terrible disease. When my father heard about this, he ordered me to take the boy to the hospital. This expressed my father’s noble soul, that he did not fear for the health of his only daughter in order to save the life of a Jewish child. My mother also did not listen to the yelling of the neighbors who warned us not to endanger my life for the sake of a strange boy.
“With the encouragement of my father, my mother replied, ‘In the merit of this mitzva, our daughter will never get sick.’ I remember that when I took the boy into the vehicle that took us to the hospital, everyone was afraid of contagion, but I was under my father’s orders and I paid them no mind. I did what I had to do until I saw him accepted into the isolation ward at the hospital.
“The Sirotas sent tasty food to the boy every day so he would get stronger and recover. I remember that Mrs. Sirota would stand near the store in order to get white rolls or white bread, when during those crazy times, even regular bread was hard to obtain and nobody dared dream about white bread, even in their rosiest dreams.
“R’ Mordechai and his wife had a big part in the sick boy’s recovery. After six weeks in the hospital, he regained his strength and was sent home healthy. It was a miracle, considering the epidemic at the time. The boy was grateful to my father all his life, for it was thanks to him that he was alive. This boy grew up to become a prominent Jewish activist in New York, Rabbi Nachman Elbaum.”
R’ Lipa Klein, R’ Mordechai Sirota’s son-in-law, added:
“Many years later, when my father-in-law and I went to 770, we went to meet with the boy who had become a celebrated askan. When we arrived at his office on a high floor of a Manhattan skyscraper, there was a level of emotional intensity that is hard to put into words. R’ Nachman hugged and kissed my father-in-law and did not stop thanking him for saving his life and then raising him.”
After a while, Nachman joined a group of children who wandered from country to country with the Anders Army (an army that was loyal to the Polish government in exile based in London at the time). He arrived together with these children at the camps of the Jewish Agency in Teheran. That is when a new battle began, this time, for his spiritual life.
The local staff in the camps did all they could to remove any sign of Torah and mitzvos from the children. The children later became known as the “Yaldei Teheran.” Among the boys there, young Nachman stood out, for he fought fearlessly to be able to do mitzvos. His testimony is an important part of the documentation of what happened with these children. The following was written in the book, Yaldei Teheran Maashimim (The Teheran Children Accuse):
“There were some children who, throughout all the traveling in Russia, kept their peios and only in Teheran were they forced to remove their peios by the madrichim (counselors). Those children who refused had their peios cut at night as they slept. The madrich Gleicher tried cutting Nachman’s peios but was unable to. Elbaum is the only one whose peios were not removed.”
After the Yaldei Teheran moved to Eretz Yisroel, some of them, including Nachman, were given over to religious groups. He went to learn in Yeshivas Sfas Emes of Ger.
He eventually ended up in America, where it seems he got to know the Rebbe even before the nesius. He was still a bachur when one time at Mincha he was told about a possible shidduch. At that time, he was about to travel to Europe for various personal matters. He went to Ramash to consult with him and the Rebbe said not to go to Europe as he planned but to travel directly to Eretz Yisroel. He did so and shortly after he arrived, the shidduch with his wife, the daughter of R’ Berel Ludmir, was suggested to him. R’ Ludmir was an outstanding talmid chacham and a Boyaner Chassid, a descendant of the Alter Rebbe. He was one of the big esrogim merchants at the time. The shidduch was arranged and he married on 19 Kislev 5710.
PLANTING A CALABRIAN ESROG IN KFAR CHABAD
There was a special relationship between R’ Nachman and Chabad Chassidim. One of the first things he was involved in was the planting of Calabrian esrog saplings in Kfar Chabad, with the encouragement and direct guidance of the Rebbe.
The story began in the years following the founding of the Kfar when esrog trees were planted, but it turned out that there was a high likelihood that the esrogim were murkavim (grafted and unfit for the mitzva). Knowing that in Lubavitch there was a custom to say a bracha on a Calabrian esrog, R’ Nachman offered to take Calabrian saplings and plant them in Kfar Chabad. The Rebbe’s desire was to expand the kosher esrog orchards on a large scale so as to heighten the likelihood of these esrogim surviving.
In those days it was a major challenge to do, since besides for having to travel to Calabria, Italy, and determine the kashrus of the esrogim and choose the right saplings, with all the halachic and logistical problems this entailed, there was an additional, nearly insurmountable, obstacle. The Israeli Department of Agriculture opposed importing agricultural products from abroad. R’ Nachman suggested that his father-in-law, being a major esrog dealer, focus on getting the esrogim to Eretz Yisroel. The Rebbe agreed to this suggestion and R’ Nachman was the one who went to Italy to start working on it. From that point and on, the entire matter was supervised by the Rebbe.
In Milan of those days lived a Chassid, R’ Mordechai Perlov a”h, and the Rebbe told R’ Nachman to meet with him in order that the transporting of saplings be done under his supervision as the certifying rav who would give the hechsher. At the same time, the Rebbe sent a letter on 26 Cheshvan 5715 to R’ Perlov with a brief synopsis of the issue with some instructions regarding the necessary steps. He began the letter with, “R’ Nachman Elbaum, son-in-law of the known esrogim dealer, R’ Dov Ludmir, has set out recently with the idea of taking seeds and also saplings and cuttings of esrog trees from Calabria and planting them in Eretz Yisroel in Kfar Chabad …”
It is interesting to note that the Rebbe told R’ Perlov to serve as the liaison between the orchard owners and R’ Nachman Elbaum. Indeed, R’ Nachman met with R’ Perlov as the Rebbe told him to do, and together they went to examine esrog orchards, to investigate which ones were free of any concerns of grafting.
In a further letter, the Rebbe refers to the concern about orla (fruit produced by a tree in its first four years of growth, which cannot be used), “About the matter of orla, R’ Nachman, and most importantly his father-in-law, R’ D. Ludmir, have experience in this. Therefore, he can consult and find out from them the details about how to take a tree with part of the underlying hard earth in a way that will ensure that it is enough.”
After kosher and good saplings were found, R’ Nachman began involving his father-in-law and together they examined the possibilities of transferring the saplings to Eretz Yisroel. They exerted pressure on their connections in the right places until their efforts were successful.
Around the summer of 5716, the work of transporting the saplings was concluded successfully. R’ Elbaum arrived in Eretz Yisroel with about a hundred young, tender saplings. They were planted at first in a nursery in Petach Tikva in a moving ceremony at which three distinguished Chabad rabbanim of that time were present, R’ Shneur Zalman Garelik a”h, rav of Kfar Chabad; R’ Avrohom Pariz a”h, and R’ Dovid Chanzin a”h.
R’ Elbaum was able to happily report to the Rebbe about the successful conclusion of the project and about planting the saplings in Petach Tikva. On 16 Iyar 5716 the Rebbe wrote him a letter thanking him for the good news and also asking that the saplings be transplanted in Kfar Chabad “because there G-d commanded blessing forever.”
R’ Elbaum began looking for the right area in Kfar Chabad for the saplings. He found R’ Avrohom Shmuel Garelik a”h who agreed to set aside place on his property to plant the saplings. R’ Nachman and R’ Avrohom Shmuel signed a contract of partnership for growing and selling the produce jointly, and the saplings were transplanted joyously in Kfar Chabad.
That is how the second esrog orchard in Kfar Chabad was started, which produces beautiful esrogim till this very day.
SENDING JEWS
AROUND THE WORLD
For many years, R’ Nachman ran Ideal Tours, a travel agency, which he founded. He had offices in the US and Eretz Yisroel. As a businessman and someone who ran a successful travel agency, he was a big baal chesed and many Lubavitcher Chassidim benefited from his kindness when they traveled to the Rebbe. In general, R’ Nachman had a big heart and was always thinking about how to do chesed for others.
He lived in New York for several decades and was considered a pillar of Ger in the US. He was a regular visitor to Beis Chayeinu, whether escorting Gerrer Rebbes on their visits to the Rebbe, or when he went on his own to farbrengens, yechiduyos, and for “dollars.”
R’ Nachman once went to the Rebbe with his brother-in-law, R’ Chatzkel Besser. R’ Nachman presented the work entitled Likkutei Yehuda to the Rebbe which was written by a descendant of the Gerrer Rebbes. R’ Besser told the Rebbe that R’ Nachman brought “a work from the Torah of Ger.” The Rebbe responded that it was not the Torah of Ger, for we all have one Torah.
One time, the Elbaum family had yechidus, both parents and children. At a certain point, the Rebbe said to the daughter, Mrs. Devorah (Benedict), “Do you light a candle for Shabbos?” The Rebbe told her to start lighting a candle. His son Aryeh was learning in Telz in Cleveland at the time and the Rebbe asked R’ Elbaum why his son wasn’t learning in a Chassidishe yeshiva.
On another occasion, the extended Elbaum family had yechidus along with the Besser family. The family members stood in awe facing the Rebbe’s desk while R’ Nachman’s young daughter Devorah, in trepidation and awe, stood on the side near the door. The Rebbe wanted to let her know he saw her and he said, “Surely she is a rebbetzin of R’ Nachman.”
In general, the Rebbe showed special affection for R’ Nachman. One time, when he came to a farbrengen at the end of a Yom Tov, he was wearing his regular hat and not his Chassidic spodik which he wore on Shabbos and Yom Tov. The Rebbe motioned to him in surprise, “Where’s the spodik?”
On another occasion, the Rebbe said to him, “Half the world knows you and maybe even the other half.”
One time, a person passed by the Rebbe for dollars and asked for a bracha for the travel agent, R’ Nachman Elbaum. The Rebbe said, “He should be successful in sending Jews around the world.”
Not much is known about his private relationship with the Rebbe, especially the secret missions he was sent on between Ger and Lubavitch. However, he entered the Rebbe’s office many times for this reason.
In a diary entry for Thursday, 4 Adar 5726 it says: At 10:45, the brother of the Gerrer Rebbe, Rabbi Pinchas Menachem Alter, entered with R’ Nachman Elbaum and they left at 11:15. In a diary entry for Cheshvan of that year we find that “at about 1, R’ Chatzkel Besser entered for about an hour and then his father-in-law R’ D. Ludmir, and that was also for about an hour, and R’ Nachman Elbaum was also there for about an hour, and the yechidus ended at 3:30.”
In recent years, he went back to live in Eretz Yisroel and was a regular presence in the court of the Rebbe of Ger. This past Chanuka he went for the menorah lighting by the Admur. Friday night, the seventh night of Chanuka, he was at the tish and a few hours later he suddenly collapsed and was taken to the hospital where he passed away on Monday.
He is survived by a large family, numerous descendants, who go in the ways of Torah and Chassidus.