Baruch Dayan, the truth teller: In Bnei Brak, Rabbi David Michael Schmidel, chairman of the 'Atra Kadisha' association and head of the 'Tiberias Yeshiva - Kommiyot' kollel, passed away peacefully this afternoon (Monday), at the age of 92.
Since last Kislev, his condition has deteriorated and he has become weaker. Today, after rescue forces were called to his home and performed CPR, he passed away.
His funeral will leave at 6:30 PM from the Hazon Ish Kollel on 3 Ari Street in Bnei Brak, for the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, where he will be buried next to his father. A Shivā is sitting at his home on 23 Rashi Street in Bnei Brak.
The late Rabbi Zacharias was born in Vienna, Austria, on Passover 1934, as the only son of his father, Rabbi Pinchas Schmidel, and his mother, Mrs. Miriam, a family originating in Hungary.
In 1939, when he was about five years old, he immigrated with his family to Eretz Israel. His father made a living from trading and retail businesses.
In his youth, he studied at the Slobodka Yeshiva in Bnei Brak. He was privileged to become close to the author of the Chazon Ish, zt"l, and later became one of the distinguished students of the Gaon Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel zt"l. After that, he studied at the Be'er Ya'akov Yeshiva with the Gaon Maran Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Shapira zt"l.
He married his wife, Mrs. Aliza, daughter of Rabbi Eliezer Steinherter, zt"l, who was a teacher of religious subjects at the Rabbi Wolf Seminary in Bnei Brak.
In 1977, he acted on behalf of the Rabbi of Brisk in the struggle against the excavations at the tomb of Maimonides in Tiberias. In the 1920s, he was active in the Haredi struggle against the health system in the autopsies affair in Israel, and was a member of the Public Committee for the Defense of Human Dignity established by the Gaon Rabbi Rafael Soloveitchik zt"l.
Starting in the mid-1930s, he headed the 'Atra Kadisha' organization, and led struggles against excavations in Jewish cemeteries in Israel and in the Diaspora - and led tumultuous campaigns. In 1979, he was arrested for his involvement in demonstrations at a military camp complex that was then established on Mount Shanan, on the grounds that it was damaging the graves of Amoraim.
For decades, he headed the Kollel Abrechim "Metivata Darbi Yochanan," which was held in the synagogue of the first Hasidim in Tiberias. The members of the Kollel studied there throughout the week and returned home only for Shabbat. In 2011, after the Hasidic community in Tiberias grew, the Kollel was closed in its old format, and Rabbi Shmidel moved to Moshav Kommiyot, where the Kollel was re-established.
He was a member of the editorial board of Rabbi Shabtai Frankel Publishing House. He published Torah innovations in various collections.
He left behind a blessed generation of righteous people, 8 children, a son and 7 daughters, sons-in-law and many descendants who continue his path.
His funeral will leave for Jerusalem this evening, where he will be buried.
MK Meir Porush eulogized: "It is with great sadness that I received the sad news of the passing of a relic from the generation of giants, the great Rabbi David Michael Schmidel, zt"l - Chairman of the 'Atra Kadisha' Association and head of the 'Tiberias Kommiut' Yeshiva.
""For decades, he stood in Peretz, with supreme dedication and endless determination, to protect the honor of the inhabitants of Ofer, on the mission of the great rabbis and rabbis of Torah and Hasidism, Zia"a and Bavadlhat"a.
""He worked with immense devotion to matters of holiness, and his passing is a great loss to the defenders of the sanctity of the land.".
