Eliezer Waldman, co-founder of the Nir Yeshiva and one of the pioneers of the renewed
Jewish community of Hebron.
Rabbi Waldman and his wife Ruthi attended the dramatic Passover seder in Hebron at the
Park Hotel in 1968 and ever since had been instrumental in the renewal of the Jewish
community. There were among the first to move to the newly built Kiryat Arba and became
community leaders alongside Rabbi
Moshe and Miriam Levinger.
In 1972, Rabbi Waldman, together with Rabbi Levinger, founded the Nir Yeshiva in Kiryat
Arba. He headed it for about thirty years alongside Rabbi Dov Lior. Over the years, he
served as a rabbi at the Merkaz Harav yeshiva where he studied in his youth, and was a
member of the Kiryat Arba municipal committee. He was one of the founders and leaders of
Gush Emunim, the movement that sought to repopulate Judea and Samaria after the Six Day
War of 1967.
He was a co-founder of the Tehiya party and served as a Member of Knesset from 1984 –
1990 where he was active in the Immigration and Absorption Committee, Education and
Culture Committee, and on a special committee for at-risk youth.
To show solidarity with those opposed to the Disengagement of 2005, he temporarily moved
with the students of the Nir Yeshiva to the community of Sa-Nur in northern
Samaria.
The Waldmans had eight children.
Their son Rabbi Noam Waldman followed in his father’s footsteps to become head of the
Nir Yeshiva. At the funeral he praised his father’s dedication to the students stating,
“you loved every single Jew with a love that was felt deep within your soul – you were
always delighted to greet every Jew and every single Jew felt like your own
child.
“The holy yeshiva – our yeshiva – was the work of your life in which you raised up an
entire generation of Torah, of faith, of holiness. From the spring of Torah in our
yeshiva sprung up a multitude of communities in Judea and Samaria. You loved the yeshiva
so much – the studies, the students. When you turned 70, the students celebrated with
you – and you, with tears in your eyes, called them ‘my precious sons.’
Another one of the Waldman children, Dudi, stated, “you were not just our father – you
were everyone’s father. You were a man of faith and love – and no less than that, and
perhaps as a result of that, you were a man of the people, a man beloved to the common
man whom you loved. You loved everyone and believed in everyone. So many people passed
through your home, people you and our mother supported and encouraged and even adopted.
I don’t remember a single period when we didn’t have additional ‘brothers’ living with
us.”
Born in 1937 in Petah Tikva to Rabbi Yoel and Dina Waldman, his family moved to the
United States in 1940 where he remained throughout high school and college. He was a
student of the revered Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner, long-time head of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim
Berlin in Brooklyn. Rabbi Hutner previously lived in the Land of Israel where he was a
student of Rabbi Abraham Isaac
Kook and narrowly escaped the Hebron massacre of 1929.
This influenced Rabbi Waldman who made rebuilding Hebron is life-long passion and became
a student of Rabbi Kook’s son, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook.
After earning degrees from Yeshiva University and Brooklyn College in philosophy and
psychology, Rabbi Waldman returned to Israel where he joined Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook’s
core group of students at Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva in Jerusalem. It was there he befriended
his lifelong study partner Rabbi Haim Druckman.
Rabbi Druckman mourned his friend at the funeral stating, “today, like every other
Sunday, I travelled to Kiryat Arba to learn with Rabbi Waldman, but today I was left
alone. Rabbi Waldman was an exceptional person – exceptional in his Torah learning, in
his character traits, in his love of his fellow Jew, and in his love of the Land of
Israel. He was deeply attached to the Torah of redemption of Rabbi Kook and his son
Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda – in fact, he was one of the greatest experts in the teachings of
Rabbi Kook. His loss will be sorely felt by the Jewish people.”
Other speakers at the funeral included Rabbi Dov Lior, retired chief rabbi of Kiryat
Arba, family, students and friends.
Dr. Noam Arnon, Hebrew-language spokesman for the Jewish community of Hebron remembered
his experiences with Rabbi Waldman as a young student at the Nir Yeshiva.
“Inside the soft and endearing exterior was a spine of steel which did not bend, did not
surrender and did not fear,” he stated “During the historic Chanukah of 1976, I remember
Rabbi Waldman stopping yeshiva studies at the Nir Yeshiva and inviting activist Hanan
Porat to speak, and then leading the yeshiva to the heart of Samaria. Afterwards, the
entire yeshiva moved to Kedumim, where Garin Elon Moreh was first established. Yeshivat
Nir then set out to renew the Jewish community in Hebron… Rabbi Waldman contained inner
strength, wrapped in a lot of enlightenment and true love for Israel,” Dr. Arnon
said.
Eliezer Waldman laid to rest in Kiryat Arba – Israel National
News
Waldman zts”l – Israel National News
United States contact info:
http://www.hebronfund.org
1760 Ocean Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11230
718-677-6886
info@hebronfund.org
* Facebook * YouTube * Instagram * TikTok * Twitter
Israeli contact info:
http://hebron.org.il/
02-996-5333
office@hebron.com
* Facebook * YouTube * Instagram
