Friends of WMSBG-Kolel Damesek Eliezer

English charitable trust (no. 1160938) supporting a Vizhnitz kolel named for Rabbi Eliezer Hager, the Damesek Eliezer

Friends of WMSBG-Kolel Damesek Eliezer
Type	Charitable trust
Logo
Founded
Founder(s)
Dissolved
Registration ID	1160938
Status	Registered charity (England and Wales)
Headquarters	Cohen Arnold, New Burlington House, 1075 Finchley Road, London NW11 0PU
Location
Area served
Services
Registration
Key people	Jacob Schreiber Rifka Niederman Sarah Rosenfeld Joel Kestenbaum
Website
Remarks

Friends of WMSBG-Kolel Damesek Eliezer is an English charitable trust (Charity Commission number 1160938) registered on 17 March 2015. Its objects are the advancement of education, the prevention or relief of poverty, the promotion of the Orthodox Jewish religion, and any other purpose recognised as charitable under the law of England and Wales.

The name is the English friends-of vehicle for a kolel styled Damesek Eliezer. That title is the literary name of Rabbi Eliezer Hager (1891–1946), a son of the third Vizhnitz rebbe and a rebbe and rosh yeshiva in the Vizhnitz (Hasidic dynasty). The Commission does not expand the initials WMSBG on the public register. Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is the seat of a Vizhnitz court, and a synagogue listed as Dmasek Eliezer is at 55 Harrison Avenue, Brooklyn. The register does not itself say that the trust funds that building.

The Commission records the charity’s principal way of furthering its objects as making grants. It does not own or lease land or property, has no trading subsidiaries, is not recognised by HMRC for Gift Aid, and pays no remuneration to trustees.

Two of its four trustees, Jacob Schreiber and Rifka Niederman, are also trustees of The Schreib Trust (275240), the Stamford Hill grant-making charity linked to the Schreiber family property network at 147 Stamford Hill.

The kolel and the Vizhnitz court

Damesek Eliezer is not a separate hasidic court. It is the name of Rabbi Eliezer Hager of Vizhnitz, born 22 Shevat 5651 (1891) in Bedevilla, son of Rabbi Yisroel Hager, the Ahavas Yisroel, third Vizhnitz rebbe. He married Chava, daughter of Rabbi Yitzchok Meir Heschel of Kopychyntsi. In 1922 he was rabbi of Vyzhnytsia and head of a hasidic yeshiva for Bukovina and Bessarabia. After his father’s death in 1936 he was crowned rebbe. In 1940 he left Vyzhnytsia for Timișoara. He reached Tel Aviv in 1944, re-established the Vizhnitz yeshiva there, and died on 2 Elul 5706 (29 August 1946). He was buried on the Mount of Olives.

His brother was Rabbi Chaim Meir Hager, the Imrei Chaim, fourth Vizhnitz rebbe, whose sons’ courts include Bnei Brak and the American seats at Monsey, Kiamesha Lake and Williamsburg. Institutions in the dynasty have since carried the title Damesek Eliezer, including the yeshiva he refounded in Tel Aviv, later absorbed into the Bnei Brak settlement, and the kolel name used by this charity. The English trust’s objects include maintaining a synagogue and providing facilities for public worship, which is the Commission’s wording for the religious object, not a statement that a named Vizhnitz building is the grantee.

Objects and classification

The Charity Commission classifies the trust under general charitable purposes, education and training, the prevention or relief of poverty, and religious activities. Recorded beneficiaries are children and young people, elderly people, people with disabilities, and other charities or voluntary bodies. Help is given by grants to individuals and grants to organisations.

Areas of operation listed on the register are England and Wales, France, Belgium, Israel, the United States, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Named grantees are not listed on the Commission’s online summary. The trust deed is dated 12 March 2015.

People

Trustees

All four current trustees were appointed on 12 March 2015, five days before registration.

Name	Role	Date of appointment	Other trusteeships
Jacob Schreiber	Trustee	12 March 2015	The Schreib Trust
Rifka Niederman	Trustee	12 March 2015	The Schreib Trust
Sarah Rosenfeld	Trustee	12 March 2015	None on this register extract
Joel Kestenbaum	Trustee	12 March 2015	None on this register extract

Jacob Schreiber (Companies House date-of-birth band January 1974) is the Orgel-line son of David Schreiber and Miriam Schreiber (née Orgel), and a Stamford Hill director on the Midos Group stack at 147 Stamford Hill. Rifka Niederman is the working identity of Rifka Schreiber, born 1978, Westminster, mother’s maiden name Orgel, his sister. A 1999 Hackney marriage index records Rifka Schreiber marrying Joel Niederman.

Finances

Year end 31 January. Headline figures as published on the Charity Commission register.

Year ended	Income	Expenditure
31 January 2016	£1,376,524	£12,131
31 January 2017	£658,542	£272,452
31 January 2018	£499,179	£331,246
31 January 2019	£638,778	£380,286
31 January 2020	£645,074	£810,317
31 January 2021	£588,333	£200,554
31 January 2022	£438,996	£232,352
31 January 2023	£729,698	£522,001
31 January 2024	£388,414	£979,955
31 January 2025	£414,245	£609,151

Where the Commission publishes a Part B split, income has included both donations and investment income, and charitable expenditure has included grants to institutions. For the year ended 31 January 2021 donations and legacies were £383,950 and investment income £204,380; grants to institutions were £118,170. For the year ended 31 January 2023 donations and legacies were £594,120, investment income £135,580, and grants to institutions £439,280.

Contact

• Address: Cohen Arnold, New Burlington House, 1075 Finchley Road, London NW11 0PU
• Telephone: 020 8731 0777

See also

• Vizhnitz (Hasidic dynasty)
• The Schreib Trust
• Schreiber family
• Jacob Schreiber
• Rifka Niederman
• David Schreiber
• 147 Stamford Hill
• Midos Group

External links

• Charity Commission register, 1160938