An esteemed personality in the Agudas Yisroel Snif Chofetz Chaim on 18th Avenue during the postwar era was Rav Chaim Shaul Yaavetz, a giant talmid chochom who did not cease learning until the last days of his long life. He served as the de facto rov of the Agudah, and was respected and beloved by all. 

A World Gone up in Flames 

Rav Chaim Shaul was born to his father, Reb Yosef Yavetz— a direct descendant of Rav Yaakov Emden and his father, the Chacham Tzvi— in the year 1880 in the town of Melnytsya, Ukraine, in the region known as Wolyn. As a child, he was known as an iluy. He was orphaned at a young age, but the townspeople—recognizing his caliber—pooled their funds to enable their town’s prodigy to sit and learn unencumbered by parnassah considerations. 

During the war years, Rav Chaim Shaul was chosen as a rov to his fellow campmates—an extremely difficult position. Miraculously, his wife and two sons survived the war. However, his wife died in the DP camps because she was afraid to see a doctor for her ailments. The reason for this was that having been diagnosed by a doctor could impede their chances of being allowed to emigrate to America. She was buried in Poland.  

Rav Chaim Shaul, his sons, and their wives remained in D.P. Camps where a grandchild was born, until 1951, as a granddaughter relates: 

“As is well-known, it was very difficult to enter the United States without a sponsor, and the family could not find a way in, and thus they remained in the D.P. Camps. Until my father heard of a Senator Jacob Javitz in New York. All Javitz’s are related, and thus, my grandfather wrote in his beautiful Hebrew to his newfound cousin (the senator turned out to be a second cousin to Rav Chaim Shaul), who arranged immigration documents for the entire family in short order. We always kept up with our cousin, the senator.”  

Arriving in America, they settled in the thriving Jewish community of the Bronx. Rav Chaim Shaul was not about to learn English or find a job at the age of seventy and thus sat and learned all day. He lived with his children and was supported by his son, Moshe Zev, upon whose shoulders fell the parnassah for his brother and his family as well. 

Boro Park

Even in America of the 1950’s, Moshe Zev struggled to find jobs that would allow him to take off on Shabbos, and he would lose his job every week. This left the family destitute, and living in a tiny apartment with very little to eat. Eventually, they moved to Boro Park, where Rav Chaim Shaul joined the Congregation Chofetz Chaim on 18th Avenue, and he became their rov. “The kehillah would turn to Rav Yavetz with all their questions,” Reb Moshe Kahn, longtime president of the Agudah, recalls. “His style was to find the ‘koach d’heteirah, making life easier for people,” a granddaughter remembers. 

He would learn all day and deliver shiurim. A grandson relates that for the last ten years of his life, Rav Chaim Shaul was practically blind—but nevertheless continued giving shiurim by heart. 

He was sharp and erudite until his last days, and was niftar at the ripe old age of 95 on 19 Adar I of the year 1976, and was interred on Har Hazeisim following a lifetime dedicated to learning Torah.