MAVETH
Another year, another Methuselah-aged rabbi is off to ‘olam ha-ba. Gershon Edelstein was one of the pillars of Israel’s Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox community, co-leading with Chaim Kanievsky after the 2017 death of Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman. The two men butted heads over how to handle COVID within their community, with Edelstein favouring a cautious lockdown over Kanievsky’s laissez-faire attitude. But what they (along with Shteinman) had in common was a nonstop vacillation in-and-out of ICU like a Jewish Shivakumara Swami. Kanievsky died last year, and now Edelstein has given up the ghost aged 100. Clerically Dead continues to have a far better run than when they were the Charles Taylor team.
Gershon Edelstein
18 April 1923 – 30 May 2023, aged 100
💀💀💀💀 + 👻 = 8 POINTS