Rabbi Haskel Besser, provided by Warren Kozak
This week’s issue of West Side Spirit includes an obituary I wrote about a man named Haskel Besser. He passed away just shy of his 87th birthday in February. A Hasidic Rabbi, Besser grew up in Poland before World War II and left just before the war started. He settled on New York’s Upper West Side but made regular trips back to Poland.
The people I talked to about him described the warmth he had toward everyone no matter who they were or what they believed. He was someone who made a difference in the lives of everyone he encountered. He will be greatly missed by the Upper West Side community.
“He leaves a very big void,” said Warren Kozak, Besser’s biographer. “It’s hard to imagine a world without him.”
