Menashe Klein

Who is Menashe Klein?

Rabbi Menashe Klein, also known as the Ungvarer Rov, was a Hasidic Rebbe and Posek He authored 18 volumes of responsa, spanning over 50 years, entitled Mishneh Halachos. Additionally, he authored some 25 other seforim, including a commentary on Rabbi Simeon Kayyara's BeHag. Toward the end of his life, he moved from Brooklyn, New York to live in Jerusalem, Israel.

The Ungvarer Rov was born in 1924 in the town Irlyava near the city of Ungvar, Czechoslovakia, and studied in the Yeshiva of the Rav of Ungvar, Rabbi Yosef Elimelech Kahane.

During World War II, he was in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Auschwitz-Buna, and finally in Buchenwald. At Buchenwald, he was sent out to "Stein," a Nazi satellite camp at Eschershausen but was listed in camp records as returned to Buchenwald, where he was liberated and where he completed a postwar military interview. Subsequently, he was taken with other Buchenwald boys to France to Ecouis and was with the religious complement at Ambloy and Taverny. He came to the United States in 1947. [Based on Red Cross International Tracing Service documents at the USHMM.]