NCSY HONOREES, RABBIS LEFF AND KURLAND, LED SIYYUM HaSHAS EVENTS IN LUBLIN, POLAND
When the students of Talmud celebrated the conclusion of the seven-and-a-half year Daf Yomi cycle on Wednesday, August 1, and Siyyum HaShas events were held all over the Jewish world – not just at the huge football stadium in New Jersey — Rabbi Zev Leff of Moshav Mattityahu in Israel helped lead this year’s Siyyum at the historic Yeshivat Chachmat Lublin in Poland. In March, 2005, the first Daf Yomi Siyyum HaShas since the Holocaust in Lublin was led by Rabbi Shimon Kurland of Darchei Binah Seminary, also in Israel.
Both rabbis and their wives are not only proud NCSY alumni, but they were the Ezra Ben-Zion Lightman Memorial Award recipients at the Ben Zakkai Honor Society Annual Scholarship Receptions held in 2011 (Leff) and 2012 (Kurland).
OU Managing Director Rabbi Steven Burg, who is also International Director of NCSY, said: “Rabbi Zev and Rebbetzin Rivka Leff and Rabbi Shimon and Rebbetzin Sheri Kurland are the cream of the cream in terms of guiding young Jews, as they themselves were guided by NCSY in their formative years. That is why they were Lightman Memorial Award Recipients, and that is why Rabbis Leff and Kurland took on the awe-inspiring responsibilities of leading a Siyyum HaShas in Lublin – where Jews learned Talmud for centuries before the Holocaust and where Jewish life is now reviving. Yasher Koach to them.”
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