A renowned Jewish book collector from Stamford Hill has become the latest victim of coronavirus in the Jewish community.
Moshe Leib Weiser, 77, is understood to have contracted the disease earlier this month and died on Monday.
Rabbi Pini Dunner, the former rabbi of London’s Saatchi Synagogue and author of Mavericks, Mystics & False Messiahs, said, “Moshe Leib Weiser was unique, a humble scholar, very understated, but a mainstay of London’s Jewish book world for decades, frequently consulted by all the major collectors and librarians.”
A Belz Chasid, Mr Weiser assisted institutions around the world including Harvard University’s Judaica Division and the Jewish National and University Library, now the National Library of Israel.
Professor Sid Leiman, of New York’s Touro College, said: “With his passing, an era has reached its end; Moshe Leib Weiser may have been the last of the great antiquarian Jewish book-dealers in London.”
In a tribute for the online magazine the Tablet, Rabbi Pinner described him as a “beacon of knowledge” and “a voracious reader with an incredible memory”.
In its latest report, the Board of Deputies said there had been no recorded deaths associated with coronavirus death within the community in the fortnight up to August 14 (last Friday), when the number remained at 508.
