Rabbi Meir Shlomo Yanovsky, Halevi

A succession of outstanding Rabbis served the city of Nikolayev. The town’s first Rabbi was Rabbi Avraham David Lavut (1814- March 10, 1890), an exceptional Torah scholar as well as a capable community leader, who made great efforts to improve the community’s general living conditions. Rabbi Avraham David Lavut was succeeded by his grandson, R. Meir Shlomo Yanovsky. Like his grandfather before him, R. Meir Shlomo was known for his penetrating grasp of Torah knowledge as well as his practical sense of business and government, a combination that made him a highly regarded Jewish leader.

Rabbi Meir Shlomo and Rachel Yanovsky of Nikolayev, Ukraine, had 4 children. Chana (the future Lubavitcher mother) was the eldest of four children (born on the 28th of Tevet, 1880), two sisters, Gittel and Ettel, and a younger brother, Yisrael Leib, who passed away as a youth.

In 1900, Rabbi Meir Shlomo Yanovsky's daughter Chana married R. Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, and the couple settled in Nikolayev. Their firstborn son, the future Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson of righteous memory was born there in April, 1902.