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R. Menachem Mendel Dovber son of R. Levi Yitzchak Zak

Riga

Chief rabbi of Riga and chairman of the Rabbinical Association of Latvia.

Born in 5638 (1878)1) in Friedrichstadt (Neiru).

He studied at the Volozhin yeshiva under the Gaon R. Yosef Dov Soloveitchik. Son-in-law of R. Gershon, rabbi of Vegher in Lithuania.2)

In 5658 (1898) he was accepted as rabbi in the town of Kandava (Kandov), while still young, and served there for 15 years.

In 5673 (1913) he was accepted as rabbi in the Mitau suburb of Riga (the area across the Dvina — Daugava river), in the place of R. Yom Tov Lipman Weinberg.

On 10 Iyyar 5675 (19 April 1915) he was appointed chief rabbi of the city, and for the first time the Haredi rabbi of Riga also served in the capacity of official government rabbi.

In 5692 the rabbinate of Jerusalem was offered to him in place of R. Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld, but for various reasons he did not accept it.3)

During the years of the First World War he was greatly occupied with assisting refugee rabbis who had been driven out. He also organized an aid committee for supporting rabbis emigrating from Russia, for whom Riga served as a temporary refuge and transit point on their way to the United States in the years 5680–5690 (1920–1930).

In 5681 he founded a yeshiva in Riga and dedicated all his energies to it.

Winter 5689 — co-signed together with the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Mohariatz) on a “public proclamation” for aid in obtaining matzot for Jews in Russia.4)

In 5688, the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Mohariatz) sold his chametz through him.5)

He perished in the Holocaust.6)

His letters to R. Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook were printed in Igrot LeRa'ayah.

In the book Ma'aneh Eliyahu of the Gaon the Aderet, two responsa to him were printed (sections 81, 88).

His letters from 5681 requesting help for the rabbis of Latvia “in the name of the true Gaon, our master R. Meir Simcha HaKohen the great, may he live, of Dvinsk, and in my own young name, and in the name of the entire Aid Committee for the needs of rabbis and religious institutions in Latvia,” were printed in Zikaron BaSefer.7)

A letter to him from the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Mohariatz):8)

With God's help, eve of the festival of Sukkot 5689, \
Riga.

His honor my dear friend, the renowned Gaon, pillar of the right, strong hammer, God's fear is his treasure etc., our master R. Menachem Mendel, may he live —

Peace and blessing!

The custom of Israel is Torah — hereby I bless his honor with the blessing of the approaching festival upon us and upon all our brothers the children of Israel, may they live, a festival appointed for joy and light that is good; may the Almighty cause the light of the days of joy to shine in their brilliance and splendor throughout all the communities of Israel, for good for them and for us in the material and the spiritual.

And I am his friend, greeting him, honoring and esteeming him with all heart.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe (Mohariatz) visited him upon his arrival in Riga, after his departure from Russia.9)

Approbations from him: Sha'ar Shimon (Vilna 5662), Magen David (Warsaw 5665), Haggadah shel Pesach with the commentary Nachalat Shimon (Riga 5690), Berakhah LeYisrael (Riga 5692), Le'Amenu uLeDatenu (Riga 5694), booklets Oz veHadar (Riga 5694–5696), Divrei Menachem (Riga 5695), Divrei Chaim (Riga 5696), booklet Lema'an Achai veRe'ai (Riga 5696), She'elot uTeshuvot Ateret Mordechai (Riga, no date, the approbation from 5698), Sheloshah Srigim (Riga 5700), She'ar Yosef, vol. 1 (Jerusalem 5703).10)

Yahadut Latviya, pp. 365 ff. Newspapers HaYnt, 6 Adar II and 10 Iyyar 5695. Idn in Gezellshaftlekhn Lebn un Letlendisher Virtshaft, supplement to newspaper HaYnt, 18 November 1938.

Latvia and Rabbis

1)
In Latvia: Batei Knesset VeRabbanim, p. 244, it writes that he was born in 1879; and in Eleh Ezkerah, vol. 4, p. 258, that he was born in 5631.
2)
Latvia: Batei Knesset VeRabbanim writes that R. Zak served in Vegher as rabbi in the years 1895–1899.
3)
See this at length in the book by R. Menachem Frisch — Shalshelet HaDorot BaTekufot HaSo'arot, vol. 4, pp. 81 ff.
4)
Igrot Kodesh of the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Mohariatz), vol. 2, p. 169.
5)
Igrot Kodesh of the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Mohariatz), vol. 15, p. 47.
6)
According to tradition he was shot on the steps of the community building while wrapped in a tallit — Yahadut Latviya, p. 368. But this contradicts what is written there, p. 333, that prayers in the ghetto were held in private minyans at R. Zak's home, and if he was killed on the steps of the community building, he was not in the ghetto.
7)
Pp. 240 ff. and pp. 295 ff. (where he also requests help for the Gaon of Rogatchov who was expected to return to Dvinsk in those days — but in practice he returned to his city of Dvinsk only in 5685).
8)
Igrot Kodesh, vol. 16, p. 236.
9)
See in the newspaper Primorgen from Wednesday, 30 Tishrei 5688 (reprinted in the supplement to the weekly Kfar Chabad, issue 1109 (eve of Sukkot 5765), p. 48).
10)
In Igrot Kodesh of the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Maharshab), vol. 6, p. 153, in a letter from 16 Shevat 5672, he mentions the elections for rabbis that needed to be held then in Riga, and the editor notes in the margin that afterward R. Menachem Mendel Zak was elected chief rabbi of Riga. This is not correct, since the reference here is only to elections held then in 5672 for the government rabbinate, in which Dr. Yehuda Leib Kantor was again elected.