Rabbi Ferber’s first book about Sefer Bereishis (Genesis), Kerem HaTzvi, which he titled in English ‘The Vineyard of Beauty’, of which I have written about before, was printed in Vienna in 1920. Now, almost forty years after that first book, he wrote another commentary on Bereishis. It is a completely different work. As he explains in his introduction, this time, for each weekly parsha, at the end of his commentary he has included items of Gematria that are hinted at in the Torah.
Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Ferber was born in Kovno, Lithuania, in 1879. He was a renowned Torah and Talmudic scholar who had studied in the Slabodka Yeshiva. He emigrated to Manchester, England in 1911 and was appointed the first Principal of the new Manchester Yeshiva (Rabbinical School), which was founded by Rabbis Yehoshua Dov Silverstone, Yisroel Yoffey, Menachem Dagutski and Hershel Levin. In 1913 Rabbi Ferber moved to London and became the Rabbi and leader of the West End Talmud Torah Synagogue (Kehilas Yeshurun) in Soho, London, until his retirement in 1955. Living close by, in Soho, he visited the reading room of the British Museum almost daily.
Rabbi Ferber was a prolific author and was renowned as a riveting orator who gave his sermons in Yiddish. He was active in communal affairs, and established the Chesed V’emeth Burial Society in 1915. He was for many years the honorary secretary of the London “Vaad Harabonim” (Rabbinical Council of the Federation of Synagogues) and chairman of the Association of London Rabbis (“Hisachdus Harabonim”). He was a member of the World Rabbinical council of Agudas Yisroel. He closely collaborated with Rabbi Dr Meir Jung and Rabbi Dr Victor Schonfeld in communal issues. He was a friend of Rabbi Kook, Chief Rabbi of Palestine, from the time that the latter was Rabbi of Machzike Hadath in Brick Lane in London. Rabbi Ferber died in November 1966.
Jewish Miscellanies 