This week and thereabouts – the middle of the Jewish month of Cheshvan, also known as Marcheshvan – has a preponderance of yahrtzeits (death anniversaries) of noted Jewish people, and the list has grown noticeably in recent years.
The list includes (according to chronological order of death):
Matriarch Rachel – Cheshvan 11. One of the Four Matriarchs, the wife of Patriach Jacob, and the mother of Joseph and Binyamin, she is buried in Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem. A passage in Jeremiah 31 depicts her as weeping over her children (as they pass by her grave into exile); the prophet then comforts her by promising that they shall yet return to their borders.
Rabbi Meir Kahane – Cheshvan 18, 1990. Founder of the Jewish Defense League and the Kach party. A Torah scholar, he was a Knesset Member in the 11th Knesset, but was banned from running again – after polls predicted he would greatly increase his political power – when his party was outlawed. He fought against assimilation, and for Soviet Jewry, Aliyah to Israel, and the transfer of Arabs from Judea and Samaria.
Nachshon Wachsman – 10 Cheshvan, 1994. An IDF soldier from Jerusalem who was kidnapped and held hostage by Palestinian terrorists, who murdered him during the course of a failed IDF military rescue operation.
Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach – Cheshvan 16, 1994. Known as the Singing Rabbi, he composed dozens of songs that are widely sung today. His popularity as both a composer and teacher of Jewish thought continues to increase. See separate article here.
Rabbi Shlomo Goren – Cheshvan 24, 1994. Served as Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1973-1983, after serving as Chief Rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces and of Tel Aviv. He was credited with having instituted Jewish Law as the basis of much of routine life in the Israeli army.
Yitzchak Rabin – 12 Cheshvan, 1995. Served twice as Prime Minister of Israel, from 1974-1977 and 1992 until he was murdered in 1995. He served in the Palmach and the IDF, reaching the position of Chief of Staff.
Rabbi Eliezer Menachem Shach – Cheshvan 16, 2001. Dean of Ponovezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, and leader of much of hareidi-religious Jewry in Israel until his death.