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הרב מנחם מענדל לייב בן הרב אברהם ישראל גילדנזון שו״ב ז״ל
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Leib Gilden (1869–1933), was a mohel, shochet and chazzan who served Buffalo’s historic Anshe Lubavitz — the Lubavitz Shul for many years during the early decades of the twentieth century.
Born in Beshenkovichi, near Vitebsk in present-day Belarus, he was the son of Harav Avram Yisroel Gildensohn. A surviving diary records Gilden’s journey from Russia to the United States in 1903. After settling in Buffalo, he became closely associated with Anshe Lubavitz, serving the congregation on and off for many years until he moved uptown.1
From Beshenkovichi
Gilden was born in 1869 in Beshenkovichi, a shtetl in the Vitebsk region of the Russian Empire. His father, Harav Avram Yisroel Gildensohn, was a Chassidic Rov in Beshenkovichi.2
The Gildensohn family preserved an important collection of family papers, including Yiddish letters sent by Harav Avram Yisroel in Beshenkovichi to his son Reb Menachem Mendel Gildin in Buffalo, as well as family passports and photographs.
The surviving records also preserve several forms of the family name — Gildensohn, Gildenson, Gildin and Gilden — reflecting the transition of the family from Eastern Europe to America.
The Chassidic World of Beshenkovichi
Beshenkovichi had a strong Chassidic presence during Gilden’s lifetime, including an established community of Lubavitch Chassidim.
A remarkable firsthand description of that world appears in the diary of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the Frierdiker Rebbe. On 14 Sivan 5662 — June 19, 1902, while traveling with his father, the Rebbe Rashab, he encountered two Chassidic melamdim from Beshenkovichi — Reb Peretz and Reb Menachem Mendel — resting beside the road on their journey home from Lubavitch.
The two men were sitting together reviewing a maamar of Chassidus they had heard during Shavuos. The Frierdiker Rebbe recorded that this was already their thirty-third consecutive Shavuos journey to Lubavitch. They had first made the trip in 1871 and had returned every year since, traveling on foot.3
The account offers a vivid contemporary picture of the Chassidic environment of the town in which Gilden and his family lived.
His Journey to America
Gilden left behind an unusually personal record of his journey from Russia to America: a Yiddish manuscript titled “The Diary of My Trip to the United States.”4
The diary begins on 10 Av 5663 — August 3, 1903, when Gilden left his family and began the long journey westward. His route carried him across Europe before he sailed for the United States.
More than a record of travel, the diary provides a rare glimpse into Gilden’s religious life. Even amid the difficulty of the journey, he carefully recorded his efforts to maintain tefillah, Shabbos and kashrus.
During severe seasickness on Friday night, he nevertheless davened and made Kiddush. On Shabbos morning, while still ill, he davened and reviewed the weekly Torah portion.
At another stage of his journey, Gilden investigated the kashrus of the food provided to Jewish emigrants. He questioned how the meat had been identified and salted and examined the arrangements for separating milk and meat before eating.
The diary offers a particularly intimate portrait of the religious world he carried with him from Beshenkovichi to America.
Anshe Lubavitz in Buffalo
In Buffalo, Gilden became one of the important early religious figures associated with Anshe Lubavitz – The Lubavitch Synagogue,
His religious training made him particularly suited to the needs of an immigrant Orthodox congregation. He served as a mohel, shochet and chazzan, filling several of the essential religious functions upon which traditional Jewish communal life depended.
Gilden’s years at the congregation therefore coincided with one of the most important periods in its development — the transition from an immigrant congregation meeting in modest quarters to a large, established synagogue with its own permanent home.
Family
Rabbi Gilden was married to Baila — Beila Steinhart Gilden, known in American records as Bertha Gilden.
Members of the Gilden family also made their home in Buffalo. Their eldest son, Jacob H. Gilden, was born in Beshenkovichi on October 16, 1891. Family recollections preserve his Jewish name as Zvi Hersch.
Jacob married Anna Sernoffsky in Buffalo on June 29, 1919. By the 1920 census, he was living at 569 Auburn Avenue with the Sernoffsky family and studying dentistry at the University of Buffalo. He later became Dr. Jacob H. Gilden and remained in Buffalo until his death in 1979.
Jacob and Anna had three children: Sasha Bryna Gilden, Benis Vita Gilden and A. Donald Gilden.
The surviving family genealogy, photographs, letters and Gilden’s own diary have preserved an unusually rich record of the family’s transition from Beshenkovichi to Buffalo.5
Passing and Burial
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Leib Gilden passed away in Buffalo on November 10, 1933, at approximately sixty-four years of age.6
He was buried in the historic Lubavitz Congregation Cemetery in Cheektowaga, the cemetery of the congregation he had served for many years. His wife Baila was later buried beside him.
Their adjoining monument gives his English name as Mendel L. Gilden, 1869–1933, and hers as Bertha Gilden, 1868–1953. The Hebrew inscriptions preserve their Jewish names, Menachem Mendel Leib and Baila.
The graves of Rabbi Gilden and his wife remain a surviving physical link to the generation that sustained Anshe Lubavitz and Orthodox Jewish life on Buffalo’s East Side during the early twentieth century.
Legacy
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Leib Gilden belonged to the generation of Eastern European Jewish religious figures who transplanted the traditional communal life of the old country to Buffalo at the beginning of the twentieth century.
His own diary provides an unusually personal window into that transition — a journey undertaken with a constant concern for Shabbos, tefillah and kashrus. In Buffalo, those same traditions found expression through his work as a mohel, shochet and chazzan and through his many years of service at Anshe Lubavitz.
His connection to Buffalo’s Lubavitch history rests above all on the congregation he served. For many years, though “on and off,” Gilden helped sustain the religious life of the Lubavitz Shul during the formative period in which it established its permanent home on Pratt Street.
Sources and Notes
- Selig Adler and Thomas E. Connolly, From Ararat to Suburbia: The History of the Jewish Community of Buffalo(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1960), p. 195; Mendel Gilden, The Diary of My Trip to the United States, 1903.
Adler and Connolly write that Gilden “came to Buffalo in 1902 and served the Lubavitz Shul on and off for many years until he moved uptown.”
There is, however, a chronological discrepancy between this date and Gilden’s own surviving diary. His diary records his departure from Russia for the United States beginning on 10 Av 5663 — August 3, 1903. It is not presently clear whether the 1902 date in From Ararat to Suburbia is an error, or whether Gilden had previously spent time in Buffalo and the 1903 diary records a later journey.
The later National Register nomination for Ahavas Achim Cemetery likewise identifies Cantor Mendel Gilden with the Pratt Street synagogue and notes that Selig Adler had access to congregational records that are no longer extant.
New York State Historic Preservation Office, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Ahavas Achim Cemetery, Erie County, New York, 2025.
The former online NYS Parks PDF is no longer live and is therefore cited here bibliographically without a link. ↩︎ - Dr. David L. Frey, “Daharoga Beshincovichi — The Road to Beshincovichi,” Belarus SIG Online Newsletter, Issue No. 3, May 1999, JewishGen.
Frey, a descendant of the Gildensohn family, describes the family papers and identifies Rabbi Avram Yisroel Gildensohn of Beshenkovichi and his son “Rev. Menachem Mendel Gildin” in Buffalo. He records that the family possessed Yiddish letters sent from Beshenkovichi to Buffalo, together with passports, photographs and other family documents.
David L. Frey — The Road to Beshincovichi ↩︎ - Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, “The Schoolteachers of Beshenkovitz,” diary entry dated 14 Sivan 5662 — June 19, 1902; published in Yanki Tauber, Once Upon a Chassid (Kehot Publication Society, 1994).
The diary describes Reb Peretz and Reb Menachem Mendel, Chassidic schoolteachers from Beshenkovichi, returning on foot after Shavuos in Lubavitch while reviewing a maamar of Chassidus. The Frierdiker Rebbe records that the two had been making the annual journey since 1871.
The Reb Menachem Mendel in this diary entry was not Rabbi Gilden. The account is included because it provides contemporary evidence of the strong connection between Beshenkovichi and Lubavitch during the years Gilden lived there.
Chabad.org — The Schoolteachers of Beshenkovitz ↩︎ - Mendel Gilden, The Diary of My Trip to the United States, August 1903, Gilden family archive; English translation completed March 2001.
The diary begins on 10 Av 5663 — August 3, 1903, and follows Gilden’s journey from Russia toward the United States. It records his attention to Shabbos, prayer and kashrus throughout the journey.
The diary and other Gilden family material are preserved on the Chernoff family history website:
Gilden Family History ↩︎ - Chernoff family genealogy and Gilden family archive; Dr. David L. Frey, Gildensohn family history.
The Chernoff genealogy identifies Jacob H. Gilden as the son of Mendel Leib Gilden and Beila Steinhart, born October 16, 1891 in Beshenkovichi. It records his marriage to Anna Sernoffsky on June 29, 1919 in Buffalo and cites the 1920 census, in which Jacob was living at 569 Auburn Avenue and was listed as a student of dentistry.
The same genealogy identifies Jacob and Anna’s children as:
Sasha Bryna Gilden — born October 7, 1921
Benis Vita Gilden — born January 5, 1928
A. Donald Gilden
Chernoff Family — Gilden Family History
Chernoff Family — Descendants of Alte Nesselroth
David L. Frey refers to Jacob as the eldest son of Menachem Mendel and records his Jewish name as Zvi Hersch.
David L. Frey — The Road to Beshincovichi ↩︎ - Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, Births, Deaths, and Marriages Found in Select Buffalo and Erie County Publications.
The Buffalo death index records:
Gilden, Mendel L. — Rabbi — D — November 10, 1933.
Buffalo & Erie County Public Library — Death Index ↩︎