Baruch Dayan Ha’emes 💔
The CBN team is saddened to report the petirah of Mrs. Rivka Rubashkin, a longtime resident of Boro Park and the matriarch of the Rubashkin family, who passed away on Sunday.
Mrs. Rubashkin was the wife of Reb Avraham Aharon Rubashkin z”l, the legendary kosher meat pioneer, philanthropist, and family patriarch who passed away in 2020.
Together, they built a home deeply rooted in Torah and Chassidus, renowned for its warmth, hospitality, and unwavering generosity to all who entered its doors.
Born Rivka Chazanov of the Chein family of Nevel, she married R’ Avraham Aharon Rubashkin in Samarkand after fleeing German-occupied Nevel in July 1941.
Following the upheaval of the Second World War, the family made their way through Lemberg and Austria before settling in Paris in 1947, and later immigrated to New York in 1953.
In New York, the Rubashkin family settled in Boro Park, Brooklyn, where her husband helped establish a pioneering kosher meat business that would go on to transform the American kosher industry.
Throughout those years of growth and expansion, Mrs. Rubashkin was the steady foundation of the home—welcoming guests, supporting families, and maintaining a household known for its extraordinary chessed.
She was widely recognized for her warmth and open door. Yeshiva bochurim, neighbors, and individuals in need all recall a home where no one was ever turned away, and where kindness was offered quietly and consistently, often without recognition.
Mrs. Rubashkin is also remembered for her role in Crown’s Deli on 13th Avenue, which she ran from the early 1960s. Many who frequented the establishment recall it less as a commercial restaurant and more as a place of chessed, where anyone in need of a meal was welcomed freely.
The deli closed in the late 2000s and was known for operating without regard for profit, prioritizing people above all else.
Beyond her immediate community, she and her husband were quiet supporters of numerous charitable causes, assisting immigrants, widows, yeshiva students, and struggling families, often in ways that remained entirely anonymous.
She is survived by her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren, including Mrs. Gitel Goldman (Miami Beach, FL), Mrs. Sara Balkany (Boro Park), Mrs. Rochel Leah Rosenfeld (Tzfas, Israel), R’ Yossi Rubashkin (Crown Heights), R’ Moshe Rubashkin (Crown Heights), R’ Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin (Jackson, NJ), Mrs. Chayala Gourarie (Crown Heights), R’ Heshy Rubashkin (Postville, IA), and Mrs. Chana Zelda Minkowicz (Crown Heights).
The levaya will take place today, Monday, passing her home at 5500 15th Avenue in Boro Park at 12:15 PM, continuing to 770 Eastern Parkway at 2:15 PM, and near the Ohel at 3:30 PM.
Besours tovos
