R. Menachem Ziemba continued

He was world renowned as a torah scholar and master of Chassidic thought.He envisaged himself as a simple Chassid of the Rebbe of Ger. He grew up in Warsaw as a formidable scholar and Genius (GAON). He corresponded with the Rogatchover who had not a high tolerance for mediocirity. As he married at 18 the daughter of a wealthy local merchant, he was not bound down by financial worries and could study torah/talmud unhindered. His fame further spread and he attracted the attention of R Meir Simcha of Dvinsk . He authored more than 10,000 pages of torah novellae during this period. He then entered commual affairs at the request of his beloved Gerrer Rebbe.Between 1930 to 35, his father in law's store was forced to close due to the depression. Offerings of Rabbinic appointments were turned down by him at this time. This was the last massive gathering before the holocaust at Marienbad .

• In 1935 he, together with Rabbi Yaakov Myer Biderman, brother-in-law of the Gerrer Rebbe, and Rabbi Avraham Weinberg, was appointed to the Warsaw Rabbinate, becoming one of the foremost spokesmen for Orthodox Jewry in Poland quote




• His two active roles as halachic decisor and an active role in Agudas Yisroel.




• He was appointed to the Warsaw rabbinate, and was at the height of his fame at the 3rd Knessiah Gedolah at Marienbad

Rabbi Menachem Ziemba (1883–1943) (Hebrew: מנחם זמבה) was a
distinguished pre-World War II Rabbi, known
as a Talmudic
genius and prodigy.
He was gunned down by the Nazis in the Warsaw
Ghetto.
Contents[hide]
1 Biography
2 World
War II
3
Death
4 Postscript
5 Works
//

[edit]
Biography
Rabbi Ziemba was born in Praga, a suburb of Warsaw, in 1883. His father,
Elazar, died while Menachem was still a young boy and the orphan was brought up
by his grandfather Rabbi Avraham Ziemba. Rabbi Avraham had been a chassid of the Kotzker Rebbe and a
student of the Chiddushei Harim, and
was now a follower of the Sfas Emes of Gur.
Rabbi Ziemba
was brought up in the Gerrer chasidus by
his grandfather and remained a loyal chasid his entire life. Even years later
when he was world-renowned as a Torah scholar, Posek and master of Hasidic
thought, he still considered himself a simple Chasid of the rebbe of Ger. When he visited Ger,
he was called by his first name and refused to sit at the Rebbe's top table, an
honour reserved for visitors of note.
As Rabbi Ziemba grew up in Warsaw, he
gained a reputation as a formidable Talmid Chacham (scholar) and dazzling
genius. He maintained a unique correspondence with the Gaon of Rogatchov, a
fiery individual not known for his tolerance of mediocrity, nor tolerance of
younger students.
At the age of eighteen, Rabbi Ziemba married the daughter
of a wealthy local merchant. He was thus able to learn Torah unhindered for the
next twenty years, a time remembered by him as the happiest years of his life.
His fame spread further afield, attracting the attention of Rabbi Meir Simcha of
Dvinsk and others. He once confided that he authored more than 10,000 pages
of Torah novellae during this golden period.
When his father-in-law died,
Rabbi Ziemba found it necessary to help out in the former's store in order to
continue supporting his family. He rejected numerous offers to serve as rabbi in many towns
and cities, saying that he had more time to study while working than as a
communal rabbi.
However, at the request of his beloved Gerrer Rebbe,
Rabbi Ziemba entered communal affairs. He was appointed the representative of
Praga to the Kehilla Council in Warsaw.
Between 1930 and 1935, the world economic depression
affected Rabbi Ziemba. His store was forced to close. He was offered the
prestigious position of Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, but
turned it down. After the untimely death of Rabbi Meir Shapiro, Rabbi Ziemba
was offered the position as his successor as both Rabbi of Lublin and rosh
yeshiva of Yeshivas Chachmei
Lublin. For unknown reasons, this never came to pass.
In 1935 he,
together with Rabbi Yaakov Myer Biderman,
brother-in-law of the Gerrer Rebbe, and Rabbi Avraham Weinberg, was appointed to
the Warsaw Rabbinate, becoming one of the foremost spokesmen for Orthodox Jewry in Poland. Aside from
his newfound political prominence, Rabbi Ziemba became a Halachic decisor
of great importance, answering questions from around the world, as well as from
Poland.
Rabbi Ziemba also took an active role in the Agudas Yisroel at
an early stage. At its first Knessia Gedola (great gathering), he was not yet
forty when chosen to serve as honorary secretary in the Moetzes Gedolei
HaTorah. At the second Knessia Gedola, Rabbi Chaim Ozer
Grodzenski agreed to serve as chairman of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah only
if Rabbi Ziemba would continue in his position, while the forty-five year old
Rabbi Ziemba felt himself to be too young and sought to stay in the background.
At the third Knessiah Gedolah in 1937 in Marienbad, Austria, which played witness to
the last massive gathering of European Orthodoxy before the Holocaust, Rabbi
Ziemba was at the height of his fame. He spoke twice to the full assemblage and
each time was greeted with hushed silence and awe.

Rabbi Menachem Ziemba hero of the holocaust

The above portrait of the Rogatchover Rebbe pre WWII whose writings were smuggled out.

http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2007/04/15/spiritual-and-physical-resistance-to-the-nazis/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Hasidic_rabbis_in_Europe

The review of Hidden in Thunder accentuates that in this dark period were displayed many types of heroism and acts of spiritual heroism were among the foremost acts displayed. Note the comment of R Yehoshua Moshe Aronson Note the speech quoted as the speech of Menachem Zemba's that the only way possible to sanctify G-d's name in the holocaust period unlike the expulsion of Spain was to take up arms, for the Nazis left them no other choice in the matter. Death in defiance was preferable to death in Surrender. I will continue with more of a bio on his life and writings and the circumstances offered him to escape the Warsaw ghetto which, with three other Rebbes, they refused and stuck by their fellow Jews and died in that Ghetto.

Finally, a treatment with some balance. The Jerusalem Post, just in time for Yom HaShoah, provides an
important review of the new translation of Hidden in Thunder: Perspectives
on Faith, Halachah and Leadership During the Holocaust by Esther Farbstein,
a haredi Holocaust scholar and educator who has been enormously important in
setting the course for contemporary Holocaust education in the haredi world.
Farbstein’s work, says the reviewer, focuses primarily on the acts of spiritual heroism – remaining steadfast in Torah
practice under the most difficult circumstances imaginable. Drawing from haredi
archives, however, she also shows that there was a more
nuanced approach to physical resistance than is acknowledged in some circles
today. While some Torah personalities denied any value to taking up arms
not to extend the possibility of living, but to defend Jewish honor or exact
revenge,

The Radzyner Rebbe, Rabbi Shmuel Shlomo Leiner, called on Jews to break
out of the ghettos, flee to the forests and take up arms. Rabbi Shlomo David
Yehoshua Weinberg, the Slonim Rebbe, allowed underground activists to use his
basement as an arms cache. Rabbi Yehoshua Moshe Aronson, who was held in the
Konim labor camp, supported a plan by the inmates to take revenge against German
soldiers.
“Let us at least defend Jewish honor and avenge our spilled
blood,” wrote Aronson. The plan was never carried out, however, and Aronson
expressed sorrow at having missed the opportunity for vengeance and rebellion.
I was happy to see that the reviewer cited several treatments of the famous speech of R. Menachem Zemba, one of the giants of the pre-war generation. As of late, some revisionists among us have labored to extirpate his view from the record.
“If today Jews were being forced into apostasy,” said Zemba, “and we could be saved by agreeing to it, as was done in Spain or after the decrees of [the First Crusade in] 1096, our death would be a kind of martyrdom. But today the only way of sanctifying God’s name is by taking up arms.”
Faced with the Nazi program of subjugation, humiliation and annihilation of the Jewish people, he supported the ghetto fighters’ choice to take up arms. Even if the uprising was suicidal, Zemba felt that death in defiance was preferable to death in surrender.