Rebbetzin Batya Barg’s faith echoed from the USSR to Eretz Yisrael

Her parents’ only surviving child, Rebbetzin Batya Barg carried the torch of their emunah, of their burning desire to spread Yiddishkeit. Through her clandestine Torah classes in the Soviet Union and her chesed networks in Eretz Yisrael, her rock-solid faith inspired thousands

When I was in high school, we had a guest speaker once — an extraordinary woman previously from the former Soviet Union, then of Israel — Rebbetzin Batya Barg. She told her life story, of her daily heroism behind the Iron Curtain, and, swept up in the inspiration of it, our school production that year played out her life story.

I was in a song-dance of sorts in which we were made to be Batya’s classmates, in gray uniform and braided hair, taunting the young Batya. We sang our ditty, we pointed and jeered at “Batya,” circling her, closing in on her.

I remember snowy painted sceneries, a KGB march-dance, background music to scare the wits out of you, and finally, as every good school production must have, a Kosel scene.

Looking back, in a roster of school plays, that one stood out because we’d seen and heard from the person whose story we played, and the impact lingered….

Rebbetzin Barg passed away last week, Motzaei Shabbos parshas Toldos, at the age of 88. Her Jerusalem levayah was attended by thousands, the crowds paying respects to this visionary of a woman, who’d been a legend in Ukraine and then in Israel.

To understand who Rebbetzin Batya was to them is to start to understand who she was and what she devoted her life to.