Rabbi Issachar Dov (Beresh) Finkelstein

Rabbi Finklestein was born in Radom, Poland to a family of Izbice-Radzin chasidim. He was an outstanding scholar in the field of rabbinic literature, kabbalah and chasidic thought. After receiving semicha at a very early age, he became Rabbi in Novozivkov, Russia. On returning to Poland he became president of the Jewish community of Chelm-Lubelski and of its yeshiva. Aware of the rise of Hitler and Nazism in the 1930s he brought his family to Britain in 1935 having first spoken publicly imploring others to do the same. He was Rabbi in Gateshead, Leeds and Carlisle before, in 1947, establishing a shtiebl in Cricklewood, London, called Keser Torah D'Radzin Synagoue - Cricklewood Beth Hamedrash (known as the Rebbe Finklestein Minyan) which functioned until several years after his death during Succot in 1977. As a protagonist of the Izbice-Radzin chasidic school he was one of the very few men in England to wear the techelet, cord of blue, in his ritual fringes. He left copious hand-written divrei torah and sermons some of which were published in 2021 under the title, Yad Hama'ayan based on the Chumash. He is buried at the Adath Yisroel Cemetery, Enfield. (Jewish Chronicle obituary of 7 October 1977; Rav Finklestein's profile "A World Apart, The Story of Chasidism in Britain", by Harry Rabinowicz; communication with a family member.) (Source)