It is with great sadness that Matzav.com reports the petirah of Rav Shimon Alster, rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Gedolah of Cliffwood, NJ, and rov of Bais Medrash Torah U’tefillah in Flatbush, following an illness.
Rav Alster was a son of Reb Yosef Shmuel Alster and Gittel Alster. Reb Yosef and Gittel, originally from Galicia, Poland, were raised in Antwerp and were married there in 1935. They were childless for many years before they finally celebrated a blessed event, the birth of their first, and only, child, Shimon.
Rav Alster’s grandfather, Reb Berish Alster, left blood-soaked Poland right before World War I, which was the beginning of a chain of miracles that saved the family. Reb Berish went to Holland and later Antwerp, Belgium. When the Nazis attacked, many decided to remain, certain the war would soon pass. They were all later deported. Rav Alster’s parents decided to drop everything and escape, convincing their own parents to join them. They crossed through France by bicycle, until they arrived in Portugal and waited for permits to enter the US or other countries.
Rav Alster’s father was allowed to enter the US, arriving in 1940. The rest of the family received permits to Cuba and remained there until the end of the war. Rav Alster’s father engaged in diamond trading and prospered after the war.
In Elul of 1946, Rav Alster’s father returned to Antwerp to see what and who remained after the war, and to take care of business matters. On his return trip on September 18, together with Reb Nathan Lindenbaum, another respected member of the Antwerp kehillah, Kehillas Moriya, in New York, he flew on the doomed Sabena flight #OOCBG from Brussels. As the airplane was about to land in Gander, Newfoundland, it hit a mountaintop deep inside a forest, killing 26 of the 44 people on board. It was the first fatal crash of a commercial airliner in world history, and it made international headlines at the time. Rav Alster’s father was niftar and was buried there in a mass grave. It took a few days before rescuers would arrive at the crash scene to save some of the survivors.
Orphaned at a tender age, Rav Alster was raised by his devoted mother, his spiritual growth overseen by his father’s rabbeim and roshei yeshiva.
While Rav Alster grew up with his mother, when it came to decisions of his chinuch and Torah learning, his father’s close shaychus to his rabbeim and roshei yeshiva benefited his only son. Specifically, Rav Zelig Schifmanovitz, a Slabodka talmid, advised Mrs. Alster to send Rav Alster to Eretz Yisroel to learn and to grow. Mrs. Alster accepted his advice, sending her only son overseas as a mesivta bochur to Eretz Yisroel, a decision that required great mesirus nefesh and was unheard of at that time. Rav Alster enrolled in Yeshivas Kol Torah, where he forged a kesher with the gedolei Torah there, his rabbeim and the rosh yeshiva, Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach.
Upon his return to the U.S., Rav Alster consulted with Rav Yehuda Leib Kagan, his father’s rosh yeshiva in Antwerp, about where to learn. He advised Rav Alster to learn in Yeshivas Chasan Sofer under Rav Binyomin Paler, son in-law of Mattersdorfer Rov, who headed the yeshiva.
Rav Kagan was a mechutan with the Rov, as his son, Rav Yisroel Meir Kagan (today rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Toras Chaim of Denver) is the Rov’s son in-law. Rav Alster attributed all his success in Torah to that advice and decision. In this manner, Rav Alster’s father was zocheh to influence his son’s hatzlacha in learning through his close and enduring connections to Rav Zelig, who sent Rav Alster to Eretz Yisroel, and to Rav Kagan, who directed Rav Alster to Rav Paler.
Rav Alster once remarked, “Looking at the sequence of my father’s life and that of my own, it seems that with my birth, he completed his life’s mission on this world. His close shaychus with his rabbeim who kept a kesher with me ensured that my life was an extension of his own.  Through this, my father’s hashpa’ah lives on in the doros of bnei Torah.”
Interestingly, the aforementioned Rav Yehuda Leib Kagan, rosh yeshiva at Yeshivas RJJ and a nephew of Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzensky, was, as mentioned, the rosh yeshiva and av bais din of Antwerp when Reb Yosef Alster learned in the yeshiva. It was Rav Kagan who served as the kohein at Rav Shimon Alster’s pidyon haben and was later asked to head the bais din to give a heter agunah for Rav Alster’s mother.
Ultimately, Rav Alster became a marbitz Torah, assuming the role of maggid shiur of Mesivta of Long Beach, where he was a rebbi for decades. Later, he opened a yeshiva gedolah, Yeshiva of Cliffwood, where he continued teaching and inspiring generations of talmidim. At the same time, he served as mara d’asra of Bais Medrash Torah U’tefilla in Flatbush, guiding and uplifting his kehillah for decades.
Rav Alster leaves behind an outstanding mishpacha, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren following in his footsteps.
His passing leaves a gaping void in the hearts of the thousands of talmidim and mispallelim he touched.
Levayah details will be posted once they are finalized.
Yehi zichro boruch.

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{Matzav.com}