Who "murdered" R' Shmuel Ashkenazi ?

Rav Shmuel Ashkenazi, z’l, a resident of Jerusalem known as the “ish sefarim” due to his decades-long habit of buying a new sefer every day from the time of his wedding passed away on Shabbos at the age of 98, Kikar Shabbos reported.

A relative of the niftar told Kikar H’Shabbos that during the first few months of the coronavirus pandemic, Rav Ashkenazi eagerly awaited the moment he would be able to daven in shul once again. When shuls were finally reopened, Rav Ashkenazi returned to shul, thinking he would be safe since anyone with the coronavirus wouldn’t attend.

“But a murderer awaited him there!” his relative said. “One of the mispallelim who was aware that he was carrying the coronavirus nevertheless came to shul and sat not far from the elderly R’ Shmuel, who was mapkid to sit at a separate table.”

Shortly later, R’ Ashkenazi began developing symptoms of the virus, passing away on Shabbos, a few weeks later. “And to be clear,” his relative continued, “Rav Shmuel had no underlying illnesses despite his advanced age. He died only because of the coronavirus which he caught from the mispallel who violated the regulations.”

R’ Ashkenazi was born in Yerushalayim to a family that lived in the city for generations.

Due to his unusual minhag of buying a sefer every day, his home in Batei Ungarim looked like an otzeir sefarim, with sefarim lining all the walls of his apartment until the ceiling. He even had ladders to reach the upper shelves but had difficulty climbing them in his later years.

What made his home even more unusual was that sefarim even lined the walls of his small Israeli kitchen. Instead of upper kitchen cabinets in the small space allocated to it, there are sefarim shelves. Sefarim shelves also cover the other upper walls of the kitchen.

R’ Ashkenazi didn’t just buy the sefarim but also learned from them – from all of them.

He published a sefer of his Torah writings several years ago, Alfa Beisa Kadmisa.

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