Rav Binyamin Mendelson, Rav of Kommemiyus, one of the most prominent fighters for kedushas sheviis (1979). Born in Plotzk at the end of the 19th century, his father was Rav Menachem Mendel Mendelsohn - a close chassid of the Alexander Rebbe – who served there as Rosh Yeshiva. After World War I, Rav Binyomin married and opened a yeshiva in Bodzanov. During his years there, he became a chassid of the Gerer Rebbe, the Imrei Emes. In fact, his notes were used to publish the sefarim of the Imrei Emes decades after the War, as tens of thousands of pages of the Imrei Emes' written chiddushei Torah were lost. With the bracha of the Gerer Rebbe, Rav Binyomin moved to Eretz Yisroel in 1933, and was offered the position as Rov of Kfar Ata not far from Haifa and served in that capacity for 17 years. In 1951, Rav Binyomin left Kfar Ata and its kehilla of 20,000 families and accepted the offer to become the Rov of a small, religious settlement in the Negev called Kommemius, serving the community for the next 27 years. One of the most defining aspects of his rabbanus in Kommemius was the fact that all of the mitzvos hateluyos ba'aretz - land based mitzvos, were kept with great alacrity. Shemitta was adhered to according to the opinion of the Chazon Ish with no reliance on the heter mechira that was almost unanimously accepted in those years. Rav Binyomin felt that keeping Shemitta was a key to bringing about the geula. He was moser nefesh for Shmitta observance, not only in Kommemius, but in other places as well. His letters, masterpieces of hashkafa and emuna were published posthumously in the sefer Igros HaGrab.
