Raphaelwilmowsky

Rabbi Aharon Shlomo Axelrod was one of the first Chabad Chassidim in the United States and served as a shochet in Marietta, Ohio.

Biography

Rabbi Aharon Shlomo was born to his father, Rabbi Moshe Axelrod, a sofer who was the third recipient of the Alter Rebbe’s ksav during the time of the Rebbe Maharash.  He married Mrs. Rachel Baila from the city of Zembin.

After their marriage, they lived in Kabylnik where their five children were born. In 1906, he sent his eldest son, Avraham Eliyahu Axelrod, to study at the Tomchei Temimim Yeshiva in the court of the Rebbe Rashab. A year later, in 1907, he emigrated with his family to the United States.

Upon his arrival to the United States, he served as a spiritual mentor for the jewish communities in the state of New Jersey. About a decade later, in 1917, he moved to Marietta, Ohio, where he served as a rov, mohel, and baal koreh at the Bnei Yisroel synagogue.

His son remained to study in Tomchei Temimim, even though that left the possibility that he would never see his parents again. His son studied in the various branches of Tomchei Tmimim for about 14 years until his wedding in Zembin in 1931.

Rabbi Aharon Shlomo Axelrod did not have any information about his son’s development or whereabouts. In the period after his son's marriage, his father asked the Frierdiker Rebbe to write to him about where his son was. In his letter, the Rebbe replied, "Avraham Elya is now in Zembin in the region of Minsk." From then on, the Rebbe served as the liaison between Rabbi Aharon Shlomo in the United States and the son in Zembin.

Rabbi Aharon Shlomo Axelrod was one of the pillars of the Chabad Chassidim in the United States, and the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote to him often regarding the state of Judaism in the United States.

He engaged in collecting and sending funds from American Jewry to the Frierdiker Rebbe for Tomchei Temimim and for the Jewish community in Russia at large.

In 1934, his son, Reb Avraham Eliyahu, emigrated to the United States on the explicit instruction of the Friediker Rebbe. At first, he lived with his father in Ohio and later settled in Baltimore, where he served as a rov.

Rabbi Aharon Shlomo Axelrod passed away in 1951.