Rav Yehuda Yaakov Refson zt”l, a veteran Chabad-Lubavitch emissary in Leeds, England, rabbi of the Shomrei Hadass Synagogue, director of the Leeds Menorah School and longtime head of the regional Beth Din, has passed away after contracting coronavirus. He was 73 years old.
Born in 1946 in Sunderland, a small town in northeast England, to his parents, Reb Avrohom Abba and Chava Refson, he grew up in one of Sunderland’s few observant homes in a small Jewish community that in its heyday numbered around 1,400.
As a young man, Rav Yehuda left home to Brunoy, France, to study at the Yeshiva Tomchei Temimim Lubavitch, under the tutelage of Rabbi Nissan Nemanov. At that time, he pioneered the campaign in the country to Jewish men and boys to put on tefillin. After completing his studies in France, he joined Yeshiva Tomchei Temimim in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Rav Yehuda received semicha from the posek hador, Rav Moshe Feinstein.
After marrying Ettel Raskin, the couple settled in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn.
In 1973, Rav Yehuda and his wife were selected to serve as emissaries in Glasgow, Scotland. After purchasing their one-way air-tickets and packing their bags, Rav Yehuda’s father suddenly passed away. The Refsons immediately traveled to Sunderland to care for Rav Yehuda’s aging mother and settle his father’s extensive business affairs.
In 1976, the Refsons moved to Leeds, becoming leaders in its Jewish community, eventually overseeing Jewish education and kosher supervision in Leeds, as well as serving at the pulpit in Leeds’ Shomrei Hadass shul.
Throughout the decades, the soft-spoken and unassuming Rav Yehuda led his community and inspired them to continue to build, even as the population slowly declined.
Rav Yehuda is survived by his wife, Rebbetzin Ettel, and their children: Rabbi Abba Refson (Queens, N.Y.); Rabbi Yossi Refson (Charleston, S.C.); Sorale Jaffe (Manchester); Leah Wolf (Melbourne); Rabbi Michoel Refson (Athens, Ga.); Rabbi Sholom (West Oceanside, N.Y.); Chavi Steiner (Minneapolis, Minn.), Rabbi Zalman Refson (Savannah, Ga.).
Yehi zichro boruch.
{Matzav.com}
He was a behaltene tzaddick