New York (VINNEWS/Rabbi Yair Hoffman)  It was Elul, 5711. Rav Refael Reuven Grozovsky zt”l, chairman of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah and rosh yeshiva of both Yeshiva Torah Vodaath and Beis Medrash Elyon, was struck by a car in the street. There are people,who over the years, have said that the collision was no accident. The kosher meat interests, so the account runs, arranged it.

Regardless, a heart attack followed shortly after car hit, and then a devastating stroke. Many people don’t realize that a serious car accident can and often does cause injuries to the cardiovascular system. Rav Reuven zt”l never again delivered a shiur or led the affairs of Klal Yisroel, and was niftar six and a half years later on 22 Adar 5718.

It seems also that much of the printed Torah literature suppressed even the bare fact of the collision. It was a hit-and-run, and the driver was never apprehended. A prominent Gadol HaDor was knocked down and hospitalized for half a year, and no one was ever charged.

A lot of people do believe that there was Mafia involvement.

Was It Plausible in September 1951?

The question is – was it shayach so late in 1951? There are two arguments that have been raised against it, but both are weaker than they look.

The first holds that the kosher meat rackets belonged to an earlier era. It is true that the great scandals came earlier: the Live Poultry Commission Merchants’ Protective Association, the 1914 assassination of Barnet Baff after he testified against extortionists, the Kashruth Association affairs of the 1930s, Thomas Dewey’s prosecutions, and Louis Buchalter’s execution in 1944.

Why is this argument weak?

Because the meat trade did not become clean afterward. Organized crime remained entangled with the New York meat locals for decades.

 The assertion that the industry was no longer mob-controlled by 1951 is wrong in this author’s opinion, and in the view of those with whom this author has communicated over the past 42 years. Some of those conversations were had on the condition that no names would ever be printed, and that condition is being honored here.  Also, Johnny Dio and the Lucchese family took over Consumers Kosher Provision and merged it with American Kosher Provisions in the mid-1960s, then used Amalgamated Meat Cutters locals under Lucchese and Genovese control to strike their competitors selectively. That was fifteen years after Elul 5711 — which is precisely the point. The kosher meat trade was still worth seizing by force in 1966.

The second argument holds that federal and state scrutiny was too intense that season for anyone to move against a public figure. The Kefauver Committee had held eight days of televised hearings in New York that March, watched by an estimated thirty million Americans, and issued its final report on August 31, days before the accident. Governor Dewey had a state crime commission in the field.

The problem with that dismissal is that scrutiny does not necessarily stop violence. Rather, it changes its form. Under those conditions no one shoots a Rav on the street. A car does the work and leaves no traffic report. That same spring, Vincent Mangano vanished and his brother Philip was found shot in Brooklyn, and no one was ever arrested for that either. Deniability was how they conducted things even when things were hot.

It should also be stated plainly what Rav Reuven zt”l was in 1951. He was the Gadol HaDor. As chairman of the Moetzes he was someone whose single sentence could close a butcher shop. Few individuals in American Jewish life held that kind of commercial power over anyone’s parnassah.

If It Was Arranged, Who Could Have Arranged It?

What follows is speculation and should be read as nothing else. No document names anyone. No witness statement identifies a driver. No source, printed or oral, has ever attached a name to this. The purpose of the speculation is, if the allegation is true – threefold – 1] to ask who in New York in September 1951 had the motivation, territory and capability to do it 2] to inspire readers about the Ish Emes that Rav Reuvain Grozovsky zt”l was, and 3] to ensure that these type of things not happen again.

It is a sad reality that unscrupulous people – even in our own world sometimes get involved with unsavory people in the underworld.  Someone that this author knows

In the spring of that year the crime family that essentially controlled Brooklyn changed hands violently. Vincent Mangano disappeared on April 19, 1951. His brother Philip was found shot the same day. But if Rav Reuven zt”l was involved in rectifying a kashrus problem a likely affected party was perhaps a shop, a supplier, or the union local that covered them. The kosher retail trade in New York was organized under the Hebrew Butcher Workers Union, roughly three hundred members, alongside the kosher meat markets’ employer associations.

Who led that local in 1951 is not fully established. [Bais Gimel Daled]. The broader retail meat locals were run by Max Block, who was open in his own memoir about a decades-long friendship with Carlo Gambino. It must be said in fairness that Block’s account contains no kashrus war of any kind, but he does have pages on shechitah. It must equally be said that no man writing a memoir confesses to running down a Rabbi

Arthur “Tootsie” Herbert and his brother Charlie ran the kosher chicken union rackets under Louis Buchalter. Buchalter went to the electric chair in 1944 and a third brother was murdered in Los Angeles in 1949, but the foot soldiers did not retire. The live poultry markets remained a hard trade well past mid-century.  Let’s remember why New York State Kashrus inspectors do carry a gun.

If the collision was deliberate, the butcher frame, according to some conspiratory theorists, may be narrowing the field prematurely. The public battles Rav Reuven actually fought that year are a matter of record, and they were ideological rather than commercial: the Yaldei Teheran, gius banos, and the delegation to Ben-Gurion, after which he told those close to him that he expected to lose his position over it.   Many of those who have grown up in the 1960’s and 70’s remember older people who placed blame on almost everything on either the Nazis or anti-Semitism.  In this author’s view laying blame on any of the latter two ideas is unwarranted.

The likeliest explanation of any hit-and-run in 1951 remains a frightened driver who had been drinking or was just plain scared. This is far more likely than any of the other theories.

The main thing we should be concerned about, however, is Rav Reuvain’s legacy – both in terms of Mussar and in terms of history.

Rav Reuvain Grozovsky zt”l, was one of the Gedolei HaDor, who almost single-handedly changed the face of the Torah world as we know it. He was the person responsible for bringing Rav Aharon Kotler zt”l and Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky zt”l to the Slabodka Yeshiva – and literally saving them from grave spiritual dangers. He married the daughter of Rav Boruch Ber, was a member of the Vaad Hatzolah, Moetzes Gedolei Torah and Torah uMesorah. He was a Rosh Yeshiva in Torah V’Daas, Beis Medrash Elyon and Kamenetz. Imagine. No Rav Aharon Kotler zt”l. No Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky zt”l. No Lakewood Yeshiva.

Also, all of the Yeshiva Bochurim that were saved by Rav Reuvain and Rav Aharon. One shudders to think of what would have been without him. What follows are ten thoughts and sayings of Rav Grozovsky.

1. The Holiness of Shabbos pre-existed creation and is the culmination of the world’s completion. The verse states that G-d completed His work on the seventh day. Before the Holiness of Shabbos existed – the world was incomplete. This can only be understood by those who perceive that Holiness. The seventy two sages who translated the Septuagint for Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the Greek king of Egypt in 72 different rooms – thus all translated that G-d completed His work on Friday (Bretton translation on Genesis 2:2). This is because they knew that only Jews would understand why the world’s real completion was on Shabbos. (Sichos Rav Reuvain, Moadim, Maamar 1).
2. If a person is cruel and shows no concern about embarrassing another and does not care about the other being mortified – this is not of the “lighter sins” at all – rather it is of the gravest of sins (Maamarei Rav Reuvain p. 13)
3. Sometimes a person will use Torah to chas veshalom cause pain or tzaar to another human being. He makes the Torah into a sword to stab another human being. This is the very opposite of Torah – which is a Torah of chessed and gives Everlasting life. (Maamarei Rav Reuvain p. 8)
4. The trait of humility is what strengthens the trait of fear of Heaven (Maamarei Rav Reuvain p.32)
5. The purpose of Vidui is so that a person will be filled with a fear and dread of his aveiros, (Lev Reuvain p.410)
6. Just like we count our money in gashmius, we should also be counting our Mitzvos (See Rav Broan Brachos 9b) – this way he will understand, appreciate and value the mitzvah. He will also take pride and joy in it and seek to work harder in the performance of Mitzvos. (Maamarei Rav Reuvain p.3)
7. Torah is life itself. Since Torah is so precious and valuable, a person should be in a state of great joy for every insight in Torah that he creates – for every question he has, and for every answer. As a result he will endeavor to sharpen it, clarify it, write it and spread it. He should do this also for his friend’s insights too (Maamarei Rav Reuvain p.22)
8. If one does not feel the simcha in the learning of Torah it is because he never truly tasted Torah in the correct and proper manner. (Lev Ruevain p.416)
9. When explaining a lomdisha shiur to Talmidim – it is important to leave out everything that does not directly pertain to understanding the concepts being conveyed – no matter how interesting that extraneous idea is. (Heard from a talmid).
10. A person is obligated to honor his limbs and his body. It is part of the Mitzvah of Zeh Kaili v’anveihu since man was created b’Tzelem Elokim. (Maamrei Rav Reuvain p.45)

If anyone has any letters, notes, recollections, stories or personal encounters of or with this remarkable Gadol HaDor and would like to share them please contact the author.  The picture featured above was Rav Reuven zt”l in Kamenentz in Eurupe.

The author can be reached at [email protected]