On Motzaei Shabbos, Nov. 30, hundreds gathered in Yeshivas Beis Yosef (Novardok) in Flatbush for the levaya of Rabbi Mordechai Zev Jofen, its rosh yeshiva. Rabbi Jofen was described by speaker after speaker as an illuy, a gaon and baki in all facets of Torah. The grandson of the late Rabbi Avraham Yafen, a Holocaust survivor who re-established the Novardok yeshiva in America, Rabbi Mordechai took the reins of leadership when his own father, Rabbi Yaakov, passed away in 2003. Rabbi Mordechai, who was the great-grandson of Rabbi Yosef Yoizel Hurwitz, the Alter of Novardok, held strong to the family’s mesorah while showing a unique love and sense of caring to all who knew him.
Rabbi Avraham Marmorstein, Rabbi Naftali Jaeger, Rabbi Mordechai Tendler, Rabbi Yaakov Drillman, Rabbi Chaim Kitowitz, Rabbi Yitzchak Lichtenstein, and the niftar’s son, Rabbi Avraham Jofen, were among the maspidim.
