MON June 24 10:43 PM ET

Yossel Ashkenazi dies at age 87

By Zurach the Po'er, HasidicNews.com Writer

Williamsburg, Brooklyn (HN) -- Yossel Ashkenazi, the famous Gabbe of the Satmar Rebbe dies last friday at age 87 in Kiryat Joel, Monroe, the town the Rebbe founded in 1971.

Yossel Ashkenazi was born in Tzefat, Israel and migrated to Europe before WWII and subsuquently took up the position of "Meshamesh" (Mashbak) to Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum as the Rabbi's fame was growing and his popularity reached a peak before the war. Yossel Ashkenazi accompanied the Rebbe during his attempted escape by ambulance and ultimate arrest in Klozenberg as well as during his stay in the Klozenberg Ghetto and the Bergen Belzen camp. He, the Rebbe and the Rebbe's wife were the only ones from the Hasidic community on the famous train ride from Nazi-controlled territory to the independednt Switzerland. The trip was organized by a Zionist organization and space was very limited and only the well-connected managed to join in.

Yossel Ashkenazi held his position as meshamesh all the years until the Rebbe's death in 1978. He would help formulate the Rebbe's opinion on trivial community matters, make decisions on the timing of "tishen" and other comunity events and most importantly he would be the one authorized grant people access to the Rebbe for a one-on-one meeting and to submit a "kvittel".

In addition to his job as gabbe, he also held a religious book store in Willimsburg. People who shopped at his store would always receive preferential status when they would request to arrange for a meeting with the Rebbe.

When the Rebbe moved to the newly founded Kiryat Joel in the late 70's, Yossel went along and has remained living there ever since, although it soon came under the newal elected Rebbe Moshe Teitelbaum's control who was no friend of the old-time Satmar Hassidim who reacted with skepticism and even outright hostility to the appointment of the new Rebbe and his son Aaron's appointment as the new Rav of Kiryat Joel.

Yossel, although a "mechitten" with the Satmar Rebbe, never got along with the new Rebbe. He, the Rebitzin (widow of the Rebbe), and dozen of others formed an unremovable shrub of thorns hated by the local pro-Moshe/Aaron community. Numerous scuffles occured throughout the 80's and 90's. Onle when the Zalmen-Aaron conflict started three years ago was the old Bnei Yoel-Satmar conflict fully overshadowed and even ceased, as the Bnei Yoel were quick to join the ranks of Zalmen against their common enemy Aaron.