On Friday nights after enjoying the Shabbat meal, the Weinstock family would step out of their Vienna apartment atop the small synagogue of 19 Lilienbrunngasse St. and stroll over to the Danube Canal, where they would sit and sing softly together.

The children remember attentive parents and a warm family atmosphere.

Rabbi Dovid and Chaya Yehudis Weinstock married in 1921 and had five children. Feigi (Faye), the oldest, was deeply thoughtful and expressive. Sara, just 11 months younger, would help her mother in the wool shop. At 11 years old, she began baking the challah for Shabbat, often along with a dessert similar to babka, into which her younger siblings would excitedly demand that she put more chocolate.

Naftali (Tully) was serious and reserved, with a deep concern for his family members. Zvi was a delightful prodigy, who, from a young age, left an impression on everyone around him. Esti was the baby of the family, born a few years after Zvi, into a tumultuous world that she understood too well for her age.

The family came from illustrious Chassidic ancestry that included the Maharal, Baal Shem Tov and Maggid of Mezritch. Rabbi Dovid himself was a Sadigura Chassid and felt it important for his children to experience the joys of Jewish life.

Dovid Weinstock
Dovid Weinstock

One of Esti’s earliest memories is gleefully sitting on her father’s shoulders as he danced around the synagogue celebrating Simchat Torah. Her mother, a cheerful and intelligent woman, owned a wool shop. Her father would infrequently trade diamonds, but mostly, she remembers him spending day and night sitting at his table studying Torah and filling many notebooks with his writings, which he humbly titled Kol Dovid, “Voice of Dovid.” He would often take Esti on long walks, lost in thought but never letting go of her little hand.

Rabbi Dovid Weinstock was described by his teacher, the renowned Rabbi Meir Arik, as “sharp and learned, and of great esteem; G‑d fearing and exceedingly humble.”

A Family Torn Apart

The happy atmosphere, family outings and picnics came to an abrupt end with the Anschluss (annexation of Austria into the German Reich) on March 13, 1938.

Faye and Sara, 16 and 15 years old at the time, were walking home from the family wool shop when two Nazis grabbed Faye and shouted at Sara to go away. While Faye was forced to scrub the streets with other members of the Jewish community, Sara ran home and told her fearless mother what had happened. Chaya Yehudis marched over to the Nazis, showed them her daughter’s Polish passport and brought her home.

On Kristallnacht, the family hid in their apartment with all the lights out and the windows shut. The children peered through the edges of the curtains and watched the Nazis storm into the small synagogue below their apartment and throw the Torah scrolls out into the streets. Esti recalls seeing a Nazi soldier try to tear the Torah parchment, and after repeated failure, set it on fire along with the remaining contents of the synagogue. Sara watched the flames and quietly wondered if they would be next.

Several nights later, the family awoke to a loud banging on the door. Parents and children held their breath as Chaya Yehudis whispered, “Don’t anyone move.”

Chaya Yehudis Weinstock
Chaya Yehudis Weinstock

They sat in fear as the banging and shouting of the SS men only got louder. Suddenly, a brave Jewish neighbor popped his head out of his door and shouted: “Why are you making such a disturbance here? Can’t you see these people are not in?!”

Miraculously, the men left, and the family was saved. But the scare brought Rabbi Dovid and Chaya Yehudis to the difficult conclusion that they couldn't wait any longer; they would have to take any opportunity available to get the children out, even if it meant splitting the family.

The Weinstocks had been made stateless, and so the difficult task of obtaining visas had become near impossible. They heard news of a Kindertransport that would bring Jewish children to safety in England. Two Weinstock children received sponsorship for the next departure: Zvi, who was then 12 years old, was studying at a yeshivah in Nitra, Czechoslovakia, so 13-year-old Tully and 9-year-old Esti were chosen to go.

It was the second night of Chanukah, December 1938. The family gathered around, solemnly lit the menorah and sang a few songs. Rabbi Dovid put his hands over his children and blessed them one at a time. Esti heard nothing, but felt the gravity of the situation and absorbed her holy father’s blessing, which she knew would accompany her for all her life.

The train was filled with children crying for their parents, but Tully and Esti sat at a window and silently waved goodbye. After everything they had seen, they understood that they had no choice. The children arrived in Holland on a Friday afternoon. The town rabbis ushered them onto a ship, explaining that to save their lives, they must travel even on Shabbat. The Nazis captured Holland just days later as the children arrived safely in England.

In England, little Esti told the officials that her father was a rabbi, and therefore, she must stay with religious Jews. She was taken in by the Shochets, a kind Torah-observant family who took good care of her. Esti did her best to show how grateful she was and suppressed her homesickness. Tully was placed in a different home and sent to study at a yeshivah.

Esti, 1938
Esti, 1938

Efforts to bring the rest of the family to safety continued. Dovid Weinstock wrote a letter to his sister and brother-in-law, Gittel and Pinchas Mosel, who had been living in Mandatory Palestine since 1933:

“I am writing to ask you urgently that you apply from there for a certificate for us as soon as possible, since we don't have any prospects at all here. For G‑d's sake, do not delay, G‑d forbid, since it is really a matter of life and death. The anti-Jewish measures are multiplying here more and more all the time and there is no day whose curse is [not] greater [than that of the preceding day]. I do not have the strength to suffer it anymore.”

Guggy Grahame, a cousin in England, sponsored Faye’s arrival on the next Kindertransport in April. Tully, sick with worry for his older sister, Sara, spent his days going knocking from door to door, absorbing hundreds of “no’s” until finally a family agreed to sponsor Sara’s transport. Sara arrived in June 1939, just three months before World War II broke out; her little brother had saved her life.

Letters Across War Lines

Hearts broken, Dovid and Chaya Yehudis wrote almost daily to their children and begged them to do the same. Their letters were filled with hope of reuniting soon in Jerusalem, efforts to obtain visas, inquiries about the childrens’ welfare and reminders about their holy Jewish upbringing.

A letter, full of hope, that Chaya Yehudis sent to Sara before Rosh Hashanah, 1939. At the bottom are the last lines Dovid wrote to his children before he was taken to Buchenwald where he was murdered.
A letter, full of hope, that Chaya Yehudis sent to Sara before Rosh Hashanah, 1939. At the bottom are the last lines Dovid wrote to his children before he was taken to Buchenwald where he was murdered.

A letter to Faye includes an earnest message from her father:

“I ask you not to forget to wash your hands every time before eating bread, recite the Grace After Meals; and to say Shema before you go to sleep and the blessing for the Torah and Shema every morning.

Your father who sends you greetings, and hopes to receive and give good news.”

With Sara’s arrival, the siblings learned of how difficult conditions had become for their family back home. Tully couldn’t bear to hear of his parent’s suffering and decided to take off from his yeshivah studies so that he could earn money to send them. Upon learning about his plans, Chaya Yehudis wrote to Faye:

“It is very nice of him, and it would obviously be very helpful for us now, but we must not accept this sacrifice from him. He should, and must, learn. l hope that he gets into a good yeshiva and learns diligently there, as then he will, with G‑d’s help, become a fine person. If he takes on a job already now, he will even forget to pray.”

Tully’s father wrote to him:

“I send you best regards, my precious son. Please write to me whether the holiday is already over and what yeshivah lessons you are learning.

Your father who looks forward to hearing and to sending good news.”

As the four children settled in England, Zvi remained in Nitra, and the parents continued to pursue every angle to acquire visas to either Mandatory Palestine or England. Soon, it seemed that hope was on the horizon. Chaya Yehudis wrote to her daughter:

“My beloved, precious Feigale!

You are probably wondering why I have delayed writing to you. I would so much have liked to write to you the good news that we already have the certificate from the Aguda [in London]. Steinfeld and everybody else promised me that it is at the consul and just has to be drawn up, and that is dragging along from one day to the next. Now Steinfeld has told me I should be patient until the end of the week, and that the certificate is at the consul and is definitely for us, G‑d willing.”

Three weeks before Rosh Hashanah, 1939, Sara received a letter from her mother, in which her mother wrote that they were fully packed and ready to go. They hoped to leave before the High Holidays and were simply waiting for the promised certificate of entry to arrive. Her father added to the bottom of the letter:

“I also send you my best regards my dear Sarale, and wish you a kesivah vachasimah tovah [may you be inscribed and sealed for a good year].

Your Father”

That was the last letter the children received with their father’s handwriting. Days later, on Sept. 10, Rabbi Dovid Weinstock was arrested and sent to Buchenwald. There, he was subjected to cruel torture and racist anthropological examinations by the Nazis. On Oct. 16, 1939, the third of Cheshvan, he was murdered.

Tragedy Strikes

Chaya Yehudis learned about her dear husband’s fate when she received a message to pick up his belongings and an urn of his ashes. Distraught, she buried him in an honorable plot in the Jewish cemetery of Vienna but did not allow herself the time to mourn. She set straight to work gathering 155 of his handwritten notebooks and tasked a young cousin, Yisroel Schapiro, with bringing them to Belgium from where friends then brought them to Rabbi Dovid’s sister, Gittel, in Mandatory Palestine.

To her oldest daughter Faye she wrote a long letter, urging her children to remember where they came from. In it, she pleaded:

“May we be able to continue conducting our future lives in the spirit of your unforgettable, precious father, of blessed memory. You know very well how he paid great attention to every small detail. He feared even the slightest sin. It was always his wish that you too, his children, should be likewise.

I beg you, in this hour of our deepest sorrow, to always keep this in mind!”

Chaya Yehudis's letter to her children, telling them of their father's death.
Chaya Yehudis's letter to her children, telling them of their father's death.

Faye, holding back her own tears, attempted to comfort her mother, and wrote to her:

“Be strong, Mama, we are young and need a healthy, strong mother. Hope, hope with us, that a better time is coming. What has been taken from us can never be returned to us — in this world. But we all believe in Moshiach and in techiyas hamesim [resurrection of the dead]. But as long we are on this earth, it is our duty to want to live, and to construct our lives in the best manner possible to the extent that it is in our hands, and to thank G‑d for everything. We had a good example in our dear father of blessed memory. That is my conviction, and it is a comfort.”

In a last-resort attempt at escape, on Nov. 25, 1939, Chaya Yehudis set out to join an illegal ship to Mandatory Palestine, organized by the Mossad LeAliyah Bet of the Haganah. Zvi left his yeshivah in Czechoslovakia to join her. Tragically, the Danube River froze early that winter, and the 952 Jewish passengers were stuck in the Kladovo port of Yugoslavia. As doors closed in on the Jews of Europe and the British occupation declared that the group of refugees would not be allowed into Mandatory Palestine, the Jewish passengers were relocated to a camp in Šabac.

On March 16, 1940, weeks before the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia, help came for 200 youth on the ship who had been granted visas; Zvi among them. Chaya Yehudis wrote to her children in England:

“I do a lot of thinking. My thoughts are with you day and night. When I at least have post, I am calm for a short time. I do not wish on any enemy to find himself in my position. Now with my wounded heart, I still have to bid farewell to Zvi, but I can endure a lot; that I have proven. May it already be enough in the eyes of G‑d. I hold on with all my might in order to see you my dear sweethearts once again.”

Zvi arrived safely in the Holy Land on April 6, 1941, and was welcomed to Kfar Hanoar Hadati, a religious agriculture school.

Esti received the last known letter from her mother on Dec. 6, 1941, and in it, her desperate wish to reunite with her children:

“My fervently beloved sweet dear Esterl,

I am fading away with longing for you all. I am, thank G‑d, healthy. I am working and earn what I require for my modest life. How are you doing my dear little Esterl? Do you diligently think of your forlorn mother? Oh, if I could only embrace you my beloved children!

I kiss you, as well as the other children, most heartily.”

Years later, the children learned that their mother, Chaya Yehudis Weinstock, had been killed by the Nazis on or around May 17, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, 1942, in Zasavica, then Yugoslavia.

In the Holy Land, Zvi did exceedingly well in yeshivah and secular studies. He was an honors physics student at Hebrew University when the War of Independence broke out, and he was quickly recruited to the Haganah. His specialty in radio communications led him to escort the ill-fated Hadassah convoy to Jerusalem in 1948. He fell in battle that day, April 13, the fourth of Nisan.

Zvi in Israel, 1943.
Zvi in Israel, 1943.

In Zvi’s last letter to his siblings in England, he had written:

“I wish you a kosher and happy Passover. “The People of Israel were redeemed in the month of Nisan, and will ultimately be redeemed in Nisan.” Let us hope that we have truly arrived at the time of Redemption, and that we can soon easily breathe in our independent state.”

Recovering the Manuscripts

Rabbi Dovid Weinstock’s sister, Chana Hinde, arrived in Mandatory Palestine in late 1939. In 1946, she married Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Charlap, head of the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva, which had been founded by Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. When Chana Hinde showed her new husband her late brother’s writings, he grew serious. “A wondrous hidden tzaddik. Our generation was not worthy that his greatness in Torah and holiness should become known!”

Some of the Kol Dovid notebooks
Some of the Kol Dovid notebooks

In 1960, Sara, now married to Chaim Schreiber and a mother of three children, published the first volume of her father’s work in honor of her son’s bar mitzvah. Her son and father’s namesake proudly held the first printed volume of the “Kol Dovid.” Rabbi Dovid Weinstock’s humble voice was finally being heard.

The family grew. Faye married Nat Kornbluth and had two sons; and Esti married Pinchas (Peter) Kalms and had four daughters. Tully remained a proud uncle.

In 1978, the extended family came together to publish a second volume of the “Kol Dovid” through Mossad HaRav Kook. His work left scholars in awe—despite limited access to Torah books, he quoted a huge variety of sources with perfect accuracy. The writings explained the Torah through integrating the practical elements, hinted ideas and Kabbalah in a unique style not seen anywhere else.

Publishing more manuscripts was a huge and costly undertaking, and so for decades, 155 notebooks of the “Kol Dovid” were left waiting, unpublished.

With the memories of her father writing day and night, and their long walks while he was lost in deep thought, Esti could not allow his holy work to wait any longer. More than 80 years since she last held his hand, Esti set out to have her father’s full work published with the help of her children and nephew. Scholars and a Chassidic printing house were hired, and on Jan. 3, 2023, she held the first of what will be a 10-volume set of the “Kol Dovid” in her hands and said the blessing:

“Blessed are You, L‑rd our G‑d, King of the Universe, who has granted us life, sustained us and enabled us to reach this occasion.”

In a true testimony to the saintliness of Rabbi Dovid Weinstock, hundreds of descendants around the world fulfill the heartfelt request of their matriarch, Chaya Yehudis:

“May we be able to continue conducting our future lives in the spirit of your unforgettable, precious father, of blessed memory.”


Faye Korbluth passed away on April 24, 2014, at the age of 91, leaving behind many grandchildren and great-grandchildren living in Israel, England, and around the world.

Tully Weinstock passed away on Nov. 26, 2021, at the age of 97.

Sara Schreiber is preparing to celebrate her 100th birthday in London, surrounded by her many descendants.

Zvi Weinstock was killed by Arabs on April 13, 1948 (4th of Nissan) while escorting the Hadassah Convoy. He is buried together with the other fallen heroes at a memorial site in Jerusalem.

Esti Kalms and her late husband, Peter (Pinchas), merited a close relationship with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and supported many Chabad institutions in England, where Esti still lives today. Esti has many grandchildren around the world who admire her endlessly, including children and grandchildren who are Chabad emissaries in England, the United States, and Israel.

(L-R) Fay, Sara, Tully, Zvi, 1929.
(L-R) Fay, Sara, Tully, Zvi, 1929.