Jewish Communities Worldwide Mourn Mrs. Sarah Rochel Schochet

(lubavitch.com) Mrs. Sarah Rochel Schochet of Los Angeles passed away Tuesday night at the age of 65.
Mentor to hundreds of girls and women, a matriarch to yeshiva students, Mrs. Schochet, wife of Rabbi Ezra Schochet, the well known Rosh Yeshiva of the Ohr Elchonon Chabad Yeshiva in Los Angeles, is mourned by her husband, her children, grandchildren and countless individuals who benefited from her wisdom and her character.
“She was a woman of real valor, of strong principles,” says Batya Lisker, a niece, describing her aunt as a woman of a nobility who held herself to unusually high standards and made even mundane activities a learning experience for others.

“She was never intimidated by what was popular or what was common.” Her life, she says, was a life of contribution, of quiet acts of kindness that she managed while teaching at both Bais Yakov and Bais Chana girls high schools in Los Angeles.
Widely referred to as the Rebbetzin, or by the sobriquet “the Roshette,” a feminized form of “the Rosh” as her husband is known, Rebbetzin Schochet made her home an extension of the yeshiva, where students felt free to come at all hours always benefiting from her gracious hospitality.
Born Sarah Rochel Wineberg in Tiberias, Israel, she was the granddaughter of the Slonimer Rebbe. Her family soon moved to Bnei Brak, where, as a young woman, she met her husband, then a yeshiva student at the Brisk Yeshiva. The couple married in Israel and moved to Toronto, where they began their lives together dedicated to spreading Torah and Chasidut.
A learned woman, well versed in Jewish law and tanach, she was, says her niece, both in demeanor and principles, “of another era.”

“She carried herself with great dignity, and lived a life of dedication to her deeply held values, hard work and complete involvement in her community, while always nursing a love and yearning for the Land of Israel, the home she left as a bride.”

Exuding warmth with genuine concern to the sensitivities of others, she was, says Ms. Lisker of her aunt, a force of unity. “She was the glue that held the extended family together. She was the glue that connected people to each other and the glue that held the disparate communities she was involved with, together.”

Rebbetzin Schochet is survived by her husband of 44 years, and their six children, all who are involved in Jewish education and outreach: Rabbi Menachem Schochet of Israel, Mrs. Chana Wilhelm of Minnesota; Mrs. Hadassah Spalter of LA; Mrs. Yehudis Farkash of LA; Rabbi Yehuda Schochet of Manchester, and Rabbi Avraham Schochet of LA. She is to be buried in Israel.