Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam

Who was Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam?

Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam was an Orthodox rabbi and the founding rebbe of the Sanz-Klausenburg Hasidic dynasty.

Halberstam became one of the youngest rebbes in Europe, leading thousands of followers in the town of Klausenburg, Romania, before World War II. His wife, eleven children and most of his followers were murdered by the Nazis while he was incarcerated in several concentration camps. After the war, he moved to the United States and later to Israel, rebuilt Jewish communal life in the displaced persons camps of Western Europe, re-established his dynasty in the United States and Israel, founded a Haredi neighborhood in Israel and a Sanz community in the United States, established a hospital in Israel run according to Jewish law, and rebuilt his own family with a second marriage and the birth of seven more children.