A rare photograph of the Zaloszyce Rebbe (on the right), Rabbi Shem Klingberg [Kleinberg]. Krakow, c. 1920s.
Rabbi Shem Klingberg was born in 1872 to his father, the Rebbe of Zalushitz, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai, the grandson of the Rebbe Yitzchak Isaac of Komarno - the Heychal HaBracha, from which he learned Kabbalah, and the son-in-law of Rabbi Moshe Rotenberg, a rabbi of Skolya. His rare name: "Shem", was given according to the instructions of his grandfather Rabbi Isaac, who said that on Rosh Hashanah of the year of his birth there was Shem the son of Noah who recommended righteousness on the people of Israel, and therefore promised to name the first baby born in his family. A distinguished disciple of his father and ordained to teaching by Rabbi Chaim Leibush Horowitz, rabbi of Krakow. He was a genius and Mekubal, a righteous, great in the hidden Torah, a famous saint and a wise man. Even in his youth, followers testified on him that he never spoke idle talk, and did not stop his teaching. And already at the age of 20 he was considered a great Kabbalist, and even then he was considered by the rabbis of Galicia to be great in the ways of the secret. In those years he prepared to publish an essay in Kabbalah, but the Rebbe of Gur prevented it because 'The generation has not been deserving for this'.
Towards the seizure of power by the Nazis, the Rebbe warned to summon many of the greats of the generation to pray to abolish the decree. After the German conquest of Krakow, they sought to capture him, but he escaped and hid for two years in the nearby town of Nieplomice, where he continued his sacred work. He was then smuggled by his followers to the Krakow ghetto, hid there in a bunker and continued to give lessons secretly, without stopping any of his regular lessons in the Tora. One night he woke his son, who was sleeping after a day of arduous forced labor, and said to him, "Stand up and come and learn from me, before they take me from you", and they sat down to study Gemara and Tosafot together. In 1943 he was deported to the Plaszow camp. Towards Pesach, matzah was smuggled from the Buknia ghetto and on the night of Seder he recited the Pesach Haggadah verbaly with a few Jews. After Passover, on the 28th of Nisan, during a selection, the Nazis ordered the public execution of the Rebbe in front of all Jewish prisoners. Although the murderers ordered him to undress, he insisted on staying with the tassel, and managed to say a confession and start "Shema Yisrael" before he was shot and killed. Before he was shot, he said: "Here I am redeemed the atonement of Israel". His rabbinical wife perished on the 24th of Adar 2, 1943. Their son, Rabbi Menachem Mendil, president of Agudath Israel in Krakow, also perished.
From the children of Rabbi Shem Klingberg, their son Rabbi Moshe later the Rebbe of Zaloszyce in Antwerp and their son Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac.
9x14 cm. Stamp of the photographer HELIOS Krakow on the back. Very good condition.
