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Biography
Chaim Zanvl Abramowitz (Yiddish: חיים זאנוויל אבראמאוויטש, Hebrew: חיים זנוויל אברהמוביץ, born 1902 – died 18 October 1995), was known as the Ribnitzer Rebbe (ריבניצער רבי), and considered a great Hasidic tzadik from Rybnitsa (present-day Transnistria, Moldova). Others, including singer Mordechai Ben David, who was the rabbi's close adviser, maintain that he was born in 1893, making him 102 at the time of his passing.
Abramowitz was a prominent follower of Rabbi Avrohom Matisyohu of Shtefanesht.
He managed to live a fully Jewish religious life even under Stalin's rule. He served as mohel and shochet. He often fasted and immersed himself many times daily in water that was sometimes only accessible by chopping away very thick ice. His Tikkun Chatzos (midnight prayer service) in sackcloth and ashes regularly lasted 6–7 hours, sometimes stretching as long as 12. He cried so much during Tikkun Chatzos that when he was done, the tears and ashes mingled so that he was sitting in mud.
Abramowitz left the Soviet Union in 1970 and moved to the Mattersdorf section of Jerusalem, where he lived for a few years before moving to the United States. He lived in Miami, Los Angeles, and Sea Gate, Brooklyn, before he finally settled in Monsey, New York, where he died on Isru Chag (Succos). He was believed to be 92 or 93 years old. He is buried in the Vizhnitzer Cemetery. Nearly 30,000 people visited his gravesite on his 23rd yahrtzeit.