Menachem Mendel

Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi z”l

The great historian Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi z”l has passed away. Read what Menachem Butler has written here.

Posted on December 8th, 2009 under In Memoriam, Jewish History • RSS 2.0 feed • Both comments and pings are currently closed

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Seymour Kessler:
December 11th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
I knew him in our teen-age years as Joe Yerushalmi, z”l. We were both members of Hashomer Hadati and he lived with his widowed mother about two blocks away on Crotona Park East in the Bronx. Even then, it was obvious to his friends he was destined to rise and achieve greatness in the scholarly world. We shared, among other things, a love of classical music and one of my strongest memories was listening together to the Missa Solemnis conducted by Toscanini. It was Shabbos and we gathered around a small table radio–either already left on erev Shabbos or turned on by a Shabbos clock–to listen in silence to the broadcast. The final Donna nobis pacem is etched in my memory as if it were an unanswered question which left us both awed. I still cherish that moment of closeness and transcendence. I mourn his loss. May his family be comforted among those who mourn in Zion and Jerusalem.