Rabbanit Miriam Levinger Passes Away

The wife of the late Rabbi Moshe Levinger had been evacuated to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital on Yom Kippur night in serious condition

By: A7 Staff

Rabbanit Miriam Levinger, the wife of the late Rabbi Moshe Levinger, passed away overnight Monday, at 83.

She had been evacuated to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital on Yom Kippur night in serious condition.

A spokesman for the Jewish community in Hebron, Noam Arnon, said, “The Jewish community in Hebron and all lovers of Hebron and the Land of Israel mourn the passing of Rabbanit Miriam Levinger, who passed away on the night of Yom Kippur. She was a symbol and role model of devotion and pioneering, and with her own hands brought about the redemption of the city.”

“Rabbanit Levinger’s leadership and power led the settlement in the heart of Hebron and the historical return of the Jewish people to their first hometown. Her pioneering deeds will be written forever in the history of the Land of Israel and the Jewish people. Our condolences to her entire family.”Rabbanit Levinger led the return to the historic Beit Hadassah building in Hebron and the reestablishment of the Jewish community of Hebron in 1979. Residents of Hebron are currently praying for her recovery at the Cave of the Patriarchs while adhering to Health Ministry guidelines.

Rabbanit Levinger and her husband Rabbi Moshe Levinger, who passed away in 2015, have 11 children and dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. In 2019, Miriam won the Jerusalem Prize “for her blessed work over the decades with great dedication for the Jewish settlement in the city of Hebron.”

Rabbanit Levinger was brought to rest at the ancient Jewish cemetery in Hebron on Tuesday. Due to the current coronavirus regulations in place, only close family members participated in the funeral.

One of her 11 children, Ephraim, eulogized his mother: “You were always so emotional at the tens of thousands of Jews who came to Hebron on the week when we read the Torah portion of Chayei Sarah [which relates how Avraham Avinu purchased the Tomb of the Patriarchs]. You always said, ‘It’s a dream – your father and I dreamed of this happening.’ You were a mother to each and every individual, and to the nation as a whole,” he added. “You always told me that every single day you thanked God for having merited to raise a generation of upstanding Jews. And I had the merit of being your firstborn son.”

The dean of the Nir hesder yeshiva in Kiryat Arba, Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, also paid tribute to Rabbanit Levinger, saying: “Miriam was a fighter. You had to fight for your own Jewish education 80 years ago in the Diaspora when it was hard to find a Jewish school and you had to learn in a gentile school, but you never gave up on your Jewish faith or your attachment to holiness, to Torah, and to the commandments.”

Rabbanit Levinger was originally from the Bronx.             (INN)