Moishe Levertov

Struggle To Make a Living On arriving in Moscow, Father had to find work quickly if the family was not to starve. But a normal job, such as at a factory, meant desecrating the holy Shabbos. The new regime had banned all private trade. Even worse, it enact...

Reb Zushe the Shamash Another memorable personality was Reb Zushe the Shamash, who served as the attendant at our Shul. He lived in an outer suburb of Moscow, and used to sleep over at the Shul on Shabbos — and often on other occasions — because his home ...

Father’s Family My mother once told us that Father’s father, Reb Shaul Levertov, was a descendant of the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812), renowned author of the Tanya and Shulchan Aruch (Harav) and founder of the Chabad school of Cha...

Under The Czars Before 1917, the Russian empire had been an absolute autocracy. The masses, crushed under the heel of the Czarist government and nobility, had no power and few rights. The position of the Jews was even worse. Almost all were confined to th...

The Bolshevik Revolution of October, 1917, brought radical change to the entire Russian Empire. A most significant change was the new regime’s official policy of atheism and war on religion. This affected Yiddishkeit (traditional Judaism) far more than ot...