It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Reb Meyer Birnbaum z”l. Known to many as “Lieutenant Birnbaum,” after the book written about his life - growing up Jewish in America, liberating the DP camps, and resettling in Eretz Yisroel - Reb Meyer was a warm, endearing personality who shared his love of Hashem and simchas hachaimwith the thousands of people he came in contact with during his lifetime. He was 94.
Reb Meyer grew up in the East New York section of Brooklyn, where he attended public school and all of his friends were non-religious. As a young boy, he davened at the Malta Street Shul near his home and then joined the Young Israel of New Lots, which became a second home for him and remained so for nearly three decades.
A few days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Reb Meyer’s was drafted in the army and ended up in England. Reb Meyer’s experiences during the war were many, and they are chronicled in his book, Lieutenant Birnbaum, written by Yonason Rosenblum and published by ArtScroll. The stories are replete with examples of hismesirus nefesh for Yiddishkeit, his bravery, and constant examples of siyata diShmaya.
Reb Meyer later liberated Buchenwald and remained in Europe to assist at the camps for displaced persons, including Feldafing, Frenwald, Landsberg and Dachau, encountering a number of unforgettable Torha giants.
After returning to America and being reunited with his wife and their seven children, Reb Meyer worked with the likes of Mike Tress and Irving Bunim, assisting in the Vaad Hatzolah efforts. Reb Meyer then worked for the Young Israel and later went into the poultry business. In 1969, Reb Meyer remarried to his devoted wife Goldie, whose nine children he considered like his own. In 1981, Reb Meyer, Goldie and their children resettled in Eretz Yisroel.
From the crunching poverty of Brooklyn during the Great Depression to the experience of the spiritual awakening in Young Israel, America’s first baal teshuvah movement; to meeting Rav Elchonon Wasserman, Rav Yitzchok Hutner and Mike Tress as a teenager; to encountering anti-Semitism in the American army, liberating DP camps, teaching Israeli youngsters skills they would use in Israel’s War of Independence, to chauffeuring Rav Beinush Finkel and raising a wonderful family, Reb Meyer lived a fascinating life and indeed held thousands of listeners transfixed for hours with his stories. His genuine warmth, his love for people, his zest for life, and his living example of mesirus nefesh and determination will be sorely missed.
Yehi zichro boruch.
