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About Rabbi Efraim Zar
Born approximately 1908 Married to Beyla Zar Father of Eliyahu Zar and Hirsh Zar Murdered in Vilna, Lithuania in the summer of 1941, apparently in Ponar (site of the mass murder of the Jews of Vilna); his wife and children were also murdered during the holocaust, most likely in Vilna Last residence in Vilna, Sopena 3/19
From https://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/svencionys/sve1223.html
Written by Rabbi Shmuel Pliskin
Ephraim was smarter and more educated than all his brothers. He was a good–looking youth, tall and dignified, almost an image of both his father and his mother. All who knew him predicted a brilliant future.
Ephraim was only three years older than me. He studied in the Cheder of Rabbi Yosef Walman and later moved to the Melamdim Rabbi Binyamin Horowitz and Rabbi Shimon Ze'ev. He soon became known as a prodigy.
Rabbi Shimon Ze'ev was offered the position of the treasurer in the company of the forest merchants the Gilinsky brothers, his previous students. Ephraim then went to study with the Gemara Melamed Rabbi Israel Chaim Hurwitz (who later served as the Rabbi and Shochet of Lingmian).
This Rabbi and teacher was my stepfather. He was killed, along with my mother, by the defiled Germans together with the rest of the town's Jews. Let G–d revenge their death!
Once the great Rabbi Yosef Kahaneman visited Lingmian and noticed the talented young Ephraim. He liked the boy and when he was called to sit on the rabbinate in the community of Ponevezh and to lead the Yeshiva of the Gaon Rabbi Itzela, he immediately invited Ephraim to study Torah in his Beit Midrash.
Ephraim accepted the invitation from Ponevezh and shortly after arriving at the Yeshiva he became known, once again, as a young genius.
I too had the privilege of studying at the Ponevezh Yeshiva. I arrived there about three years after Ephraim, who was already loved and accepted by all the Yeshiva students.
From Ponevezh we both went on to the Chafetz Chaim Yeshiva in Radin. There we found hundreds of young men sitting day and night, studying Torah and wisdom. Even among them the young man from Lingmian immediately distinguished himself and was recognized as being intelligent, both well–versed and well–rounded. His way of studying amazed all his acquaintances and teachers and the son–in–law of the Chafetz Chaim, the Gaon Rabbi Zachs SHALITA, chose him specifically as his study partner.
In 1936 he married the daughter of the Rabbi of Horodyszcze and was immediately appointed as Rosh Yeshiva in the city of Nowogrsdek. He was only 22 years old at the time. A few years later, a large assembly of Rabbis convened in Vilna and Rabbi Chaim Ezer Grodensky referred to him as “the young genius.”
His new methods of understanding the Torah, his special way of study, his sharpness and his fame, made his name known all over Poland.
At the outbreak of the Second World War he moved with all his students to Vilna and hoped that he would be able to escape to the free world.
To our dismay and great pain he was unable to carry out his plan. In the early days of the German occupation, he and hundreds of other Rabbis and Yeshiva students were taken to the vicinity of Ponary, where they were all executed by human predatory animals.
The House of Israel, wherever it is, should mourn this great loss to our nation. This destruction removed a significant community, rich in Torah and culture, that promised glory to future generations.
Be the memory of this righteous man and genius, Rabbi Ephraim Zar of Lingmian, blessed forever.
G–d will revenge his blood!
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Rabbi Efraim Zar's Timeline
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Ponary, ostródzki, warmińsko-mazurskie, Poland
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