Based on the Parshah Hashavuah

Dayan Chanoch Eherentreu was six years old during Kristallnacht, November 9-10, 1938. He says, “I vividly remember my late father being taken by the Gestapo to Dachau. I can still see the flames consuming the Torah Scrolls, which had been removed from the Ark to the courtyard outside the synagogue to be burned.”

Dayan Ehrentreu’s grandfather, Rabbi Chanoch Ehrentreu, was the Chief Rabbi of Munich and the Dean of the Rabbinerseminar zu Berlin, founded in 1873. The Nazis closed it in 1938, and Dayan Ehrentreu and his parents escaped to London. He was an ud mutzal m’aish, a firebrand saved from the fires of the Holocaust.

In England he became one of the leading Talmidei Chochamim, becoming Rosh Kollel in Sunderland, 1960-1979, Av Beis Din Manchester 1980-1984, Av Beis Din London 1985-2008, and currently, Av Beis Din of the the Conference of European Rabbis, which serves 13 countries. He became the driving force of Torah in Anglo and European Jewry. Dayan Ehrentreu would learn Torah from 2 AM to 5 AM every day in addition to the ten shiurim he delivered each week. He personally fed anorexic children and delivered goods for hachnasas kallah.

Dayan Ehrentreu became the Dean of the rebuilt Rabbinerseminar zu Berlin in 2009 and has given Smicha to many young rabbis who are reviving Torah life in Europe. Upon receiving the Order of Merit of Germany in 2018, he said, “I finally sign the name Chanoch Ehrentreu to the ordination certificates of the Rabbinerseminar zu Berlin, 89 years after my grandfather and namesake was obligated to decline this honor. I do so, and thus, for me, the circle has closed.”