Yisroel Zev Gustman


Yisroel Zev Gustman was the last Dayan in Vilna during World War II.
After the war he moved to the United States, headed a Yeshiva on Eastern Parkway, in Brooklyn, NY, and in 1971 immigrated to Israel, where he established the Netzach Yisroel - Vilna Ramiles Yeshiva in the Rechavia neighborhood of Jerusalem.
On Thursday afternoons he gave an open, high-level shiur in the yeshiva, attended by "Rabbis, intellectuals, religious court judges, a Supreme Court justice and various professors."

Biography

He was born in Lithuania in 1908. In his youth he was known as an illui and learned in Chavruta together with Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz in Grodno, and learned from Rabbi Shimon Shkop at the Grodno Yeshiva.
At age 20 he married a daughter of Rabbi Meir Bassin, who died shortly before the wedding; despite his age, Gustman inherited Bassin's positions of
Gustman's son Meir was murdered by the Nazis. Gustman, his wife Sarah and a daughter survived.

Life in Israel

The yeshiva he opened Israel was named after the yeshiva in Vilna he had headed, beginning in 1935 until World War II.
The Gustmans saw grandchildren. Rabbi Gustman's wife passed away before he did.

Plants

As a form of payback that his life was saved by "the shelter of the bushes
and the fruit of the trees" in a forest during the war, he personally acted
as gardener in a yeshiva in Israel.

Written Works

Gustman's main writings, some published post-humously by his son-in-law, were volumes on the following Talmudic tractates: