Moshe Aryeh Freund

Who was Moshe Aryeh Freund?

Rabbi Moshe Aryeh Freund was the Chief Rabbi of the Edah HaChareidis in Jerusalem. He wrote a famous book called Ateres Yehoshua, and he himself was also referred to with this name occasionally. He was a Satmar chossid.

He was born in 1904 in the Hungarian town of Honiad, where his father, Rabbi Yisroel Freund, served as av beis din. His mother, Soroh, was a daughter of Rabbi Zeev Goldberger, the Rov of Honiad. He was a descendant of the Remo, the Maharshal, the Shach, and the Beis Yosef.

At 16 he married the daughter of Reb Boruch Goldberger, who was distantly related.

Before the Second World War broke out, he served as rosh yeshiva in the Hungarian town of Sǎtmar. The Nazis arrested him and his entire family in 1944. The family was deported to Auschwitz, where only Reb Moshe Aryeh survived; his wife and all of his nine children died there at the hands of the Nazis.

In 1951 he moved to Jerusalem, where he became the Rov of the Satmar community. In 1979, he was elected av beis din of the Edah HaChareidis, a position which he fulfilled until his death.

After his death, he was succeeded by Rabbi Yisroel Moshe Dushinsky as av beis din and Rabbi Yisroel Yaakov Fisher as Raavad. His yahrzeit is on the 20th of Elul.