Rav Bentzion Kruman Hy”d: The Chicago Connection

By R&R Levitin, Avi Yishai and Yitzchok Hisiger
Credit to the Yated Ne'eman

Klal Yisroel continues to mourn the kedoshim murdered in Mumbai, India. Among them was a special yungerman, R’ Bentzion Kruman Hy”d of Bat Yam, Israel, whose father, ybl”c R’ Chaim (Barry) Kruman, was born in Chicago.

Chaim’s mother, whose maiden was Magnes, was one of three sisters. One of her sisters married Rav Chaim Zimmerman, the famed rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Beis Medrash L’Torah in Chicago. The second married R’ Pinchos Shain, a brother of R’ Tzadok Shaingarten, a Chicago baal habayis, who was part of a chaburah of baalei batim who were talmidei chachomim from Mir-Shanghai. The third son-in-law was Mr. Joe Kruman. A simple American baal habayis who kept his shul, Bais Yitzchok of Albany Park, going for a number of years after the neighborhood went under, Mr. Kruman sent his son Chaim to Telshe Yeshiva in Chicago for high school.

Chaim eventually left Chicago and went to learn in Yeshivas Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin. From there he went to Eretz Yisroel, where he eventually settled in Kiryat Bobov in Bat Yam. He has been in Eretz Yisroel for over 30 years ago and all of his 10 children were born there.

What is noteworthy as relates to the recent tragedy is the following.
Chaim Kruman was in America this past week, having traveled in to attend the wedding of a son of the Bobover Rabbi Thursday night in Brooklyn. Chaim then traveled to Chicago on Friday to visit his mother for Shabbos. When Chaim left Boro Park, the situation in Mumbai was very much in the air. He was pretty sure that his son, R’ Bentzion, was in the doomed building, but was unsure, like everyone else, whether his son had been able to escape from the building. At that point, all information and details were sketchy.

While Chaim’s plane was in the air on the way to Chicago, reports came in that the raid on the Chabad House in Mumbai had been completed and that none of the hostages - including R’ Bentzion - had survived. The family called a Chicago acquaintance to meet Chaim at the airport. This person was nervous about the encounter with Chaim, having to break the news to him that his dear son did not survive, so he called one of the choshuveh rabbonim in Chicago to accompany him to give chizuk to the bereaved father.

They arrived at the airport and met Chaim. He asked them a host of questions and then requested to use a cell phone. Chaim called his family in Eretz Yisroel and they told him that although nothing was going to be confirmed until after Shabbos, it appeared that there were no survivors. (Later, just before Shabbos, officials from the American Embassy in India contacted him to tell him that his son, who he had last seen just six days earlier in Eretz Yisroel, was among the victims.)
Chaim put his head down and pinched the bridge of his nose for a couple of minutes. He turned white as a ghost.

He had lost his precious son.
Life would never be the same again.
He was very much tzutumult while he was accompanied to pick up his luggage.
What was there to say?