Wilem Bienenstock

Aharon Ze’ev (Wilem) Bienenstock passed away peacefully surrounded by his family on Saturday evening, January 19th, after a short illness. He was 86.

Ze’ev was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1932, and fled with his family during the war through Poland, Hungary, and Romania. He was on the boat Bubul when the Patria was torpedoed and reached Palestine by train in 1944. He served as an artilleryman in the Israel Defense Forces in the 1956 Sinai War. He went on to study Mechanical Engineering at the Technion in Haifa, and then worked in Dimona and Ashdod. He and Hana were married in 1966, and moved to Montreal to be close to family who had settled there. They soon moved to Toronto, and Ze’ev worked as a Nuclear Engineer for the Ontario Hydro authority, building the nuclear power plant B at Pickering. He retired from Hydro in 1990’s

Ze’ev’s family mourns him, his wife of 53 years Hana, his sister Esther in Tel Aviv, his children Dr. Eli (Yael), Yossi (Yocheved), Sharona (Joe) and Meir (Sarah), and his grandchildren Shoshana (Daniel), Avraham, Avital (Ariel), Moishy, Shira, Rafi, Sarah, Mendy, Atara, Yaakov, Noam, Zachary, Akiva, Aura, Livia, Shalom, Yoni, Eitan, Shaina, and Hillel.

Ze’ev was a beloved and acclaimed Torah reader, and for decades taught boys how to read Torah for their bar mitzvahs. He was a dedicated participant in the Daf Yomi page-a-day study cycle of Talmud, and completed the study of the entire Babylonian Talmud six times. At the time of his passing, he was at work on his 7th cycle.

The burial will take place approximately at approximately 1:00 p.m. at Eretz HaChaim Cemetery, Tzomet Shimshon, P.O.B. 41136, Jerusalem, Israel, 91410.

Shiva in Israel will be held at 15 Rehov Hashoshan, Beit Shemesh, Israel.

Shiva in Toronto will be held at 214 Goulding Ave., Toronto, M2R 2P5.