נשבה ארון הקודש: הגה"ק מקאשוי זי"ע

By GARY STERN
gstern@thejournalnews.com
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: March 2, 2005)


Thousands of Hasidic Jews from Brooklyn and elsewhere came to Bedford yesterday to pay their respects to Grand Rabbi Rafael Blum, who founded the Kasho Hasidic community during the 1970s and established the Kasho yeshiva in town shortly thereafter.

Blum died yesterday in New York City and his body was brought to the community's 169-acre Bedford campus, which includes a cemetery. Blum was believed to be in his mid-90s.

Bedford police started directing traffic hours before a late afternoon funeral as bearded Hasidic men in black hats began arriving by car, bus and train. State police, Westchester County police and other departments were brought in for support, and Bedford police closed off Haines Road, which leads to the Kasho estate's main entrance.

"We were asked to keep everybody away except for the Hasidic community," Bedford Police Lt. Robert Mazurak said.

The Kasho community — sometimes spelled Kashau — is named for an industrial city in eastern Slovakia that, at various times over the centuries, belonged to Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Blum survived the Holocaust, then fled Czechoslovakia's Communist government in 1948, settling in Brooklyn, where he established a yeshiva in the Williamsburg section.

In 1977, the community bought the Hillcrest Center for Children in Bedford Hills and established a yeshiva, known as Kahal Adas Kashau. Male students study Torah and Talmud there, having little contact with the outside world.

Blum still had many followers and students in Williamsburg, where hundreds would line up on Rosh Hashana to receive a new year's blessing from the grand rabbi.