Over seven decades after the Ruzhiner’s midnight ride from Russia to Austria, his descendants were to complete his journey

Title: The Galicia–Vienna–Tel Aviv Express

Location: New York

Document: Melaveh Malkah Invitation

Time: 1963

Ruzhin-Sadigura has been one of the most influential dynasties in the history of the chassidic movement. One of its defining features is its derech hamalchus — regal way. The magnificent courts established by Rav Yisrael Friedman — “der Heiliger Rizhiner” — and his descendants spread the chassidus across Ukraine, Galicia, and Romania throughout the 19th century.

Rav Yisrael Friedman was born into chassidic aristocracy in 1796, as a direct descendant of the Maggid of Mezritch and his son Rav Avraham Hamalach, as well as of Rav Nachum of Chernobyl. Orphaned as a young child, he rose to prominence after his elder brother’s passing, and assumed a position of leadership at the tender age of 17. After the passing of Rav Avraham Yehoshua Heschel, the Apter Rav, in 1825, Rav Yisrael — by now having settled in Ruzhin — was to become the dominant chassidic leader in the southwestern districts of the Pale of Settlement.

After his imprisonment by the czarist government on trumped-up charges, the Ruzhiner ultimately escaped across the border to Austria in 1842, where he settled in Sadigura. The Ruzhin dynasty flourished in its new home. The descendants of Rav Yisrael of Ruzhin built courts reflecting the regal way of their illustrious forebear. With multitudes of chassidim distributed over a wide geographical area that included Bukovina, Romania, and Galicia, the dynasty was to have a tremendous influence on chassidus for the next century and beyond.

Over seven decades after the Ruzhiner’s midnight ride from Russia to Austria, his descendants were to complete his journey. The mayhem of World War I brought the battlefield to the shtetls of Galicia and its environs. Czar Nicholas II was fighting the Austrian Habsburgs, and the great courts of the Sadigura branches were in the line of fire.

The many Jewish refugees who fled west at the time had compelling reasons, but the Rebbes of the Ruzhin dynasty were operating on the collective painful memory of so many years prior, when the Ruzhiner fled the czar’s clutches. The various tzaddikim of the dynasty fled to Vienna, where several of them set up courts, including Boyan, Tchortkov, Kopyczynitz, Husyatin, and more. They abandoned the rural shtetls of Eastern Europe, and restoration of their homes, shuls, and regal courts wasn’t feasible in the new setting.

The various branches of the Ruzhin-Sadigura dynasty attempted to adapt to an urban Western environment, but their Vienna sojourn unfortunately didn’t last long. A little more than two decades after their arrival in the Austrian capital, on March 12, 1938, the Anschluss was proclaimed between Nazi Germany and Austria. This formally incorporated Austria into the Third Reich, and the Jews of Vienna found themselves under Nazi occupation. Many attempted to flee while there was still time, including almost all of the Rebbes of the Ruzhin-Sadigura dynasty still living in Vienna.

Although the Boyaner Rebbe, Rav Mordechai Shlomo Friedman, and, later, the Kopyczynitzer Rebbe, Rav Avraham Yehoshua Heschel, immigrated to the United States, settling in New York, almost all of the other branches of the dynasty went from Vienna to Tel Aviv — from the cultural capital of Europe, to the emerging metropolis of the New Yishuv.

Two branches of Sadigura, Rav Shlomo Chaim Friedman and Rav Avraham Yaakov, the Abir Yaakov of Sadigura, both escaped Vienna after the Anschluss and settled in Tel Aviv. The latter played a leading role in Agudas Yisrael during the tumultuous early years of the State of Israel. Rav Yisrael Friedman, the Boyaner Rebbe of Leipzig, escaped the Nazis even earlier than his Vienna-based cousins, and settled in Tel Aviv as well. Rav Shlomo Friedman of Tchortkov escaped Vienna with his family to Palestine in 1939 and would go on to become Tchortkover Rebbe after his father’s passing in 1946. His court was in close proximity to many other rebbes in Tel Aviv. The Rebbe was also active on behalf of the klal as one of the founders of Chinuch Atzmai.

Rav Yitzchak Friedman of Bohush survived the Holocaust in Romania, arriving in Tel Aviv in 1951, where he established the headquarters of the Bohush chassidic community on Rechov Rothschild in the center of Tel Aviv. The Husyatin branch was one of the most prominent dynasties during the golden age of Tel Aviv chassidus. Rav Yisrael Friedman of Husyatin escaped to Vienna during World War I and moved to Tel Aviv in 1937. He was the elder of the Ruzhiner Rebbes at his passing at the age of 92.

Vasloi is one of the lesser known and most unique branches of the dynasty in this context. One of the few branches that didn’t escape to Vienna during World War I, Ruzhiner einekel Rav Chaim Dov Halperin resided in Vasloi and then Bucharest, Romania, where he survived the Holocaust. When he moved to Israel after the war, he settled in Haifa. His son Rav Yaakov Yosef Shlomo moved to Tel Aviv in 1956, and was succeeded by his son, Rav Avraham Shalom Shimshon, who remains there until this very day. The Vasloi shtibel on Rechov Ben Gurion is one of the last active chassidic courts in Tel Aviv in the 21st century.

Even the Vizhnitz dynasty, which also descends from Ruzhin, ended up in Tel Aviv. When the Damesek Eliezer, Rav Eliezer Hager of Vizhnitz, arrived in Eretz Yisrael in 1944, he settled in Tel Aviv and established a Vizhnitz yeshivah there. After his untimely passing two years later, his brother and successor Rav Chaim Meir Hager, the Imrei Chaim of Vizhnitz, was one of the first leading rebbes who left Tel Aviv for the emerging religious town of Bnei Brak.

In 1953, the Boyaner Rebbe, Rav Mordechai Shlomo Friedman, one of the first major chassidic rebbes to relocate to America, founded Mesivta Tiferes Yisrael of Ruzhin in Yerushalayim. The first rosh yeshivah was Rav Yehoshua Heshel Brim. The yeshivah was placed under the governance of the Rebbes of the Ruzhin dynasty, a tradition that continues to this day.

The yeshivah initially opened in the Boyaner Kloiz in Batei Hornstein. In 1967 (5727), it relocated to a new building on Malchei Yisrael Street.

In the 1980s, Rav Ephraim Fishel Rabinowitz was appointed rosh yeshivah. He was later succeeded by his son, Rav Tzvi Rabinowitz. Among the Torah greats who have served on the yeshivah’s faculty are: Rav Moshe Salant; Rav Yehoshua Heshel Brim (Bohush), who was the nephew of rosh yeshivah Rav Yehoshua Heshel Brim (distinguished by the titles “Rav Shia Hagadol” for the Rosh Yeshivah and “Rav Shia Hakatan” for his nephew); Rav Zev Feldman (noted  dayan and rosh yeshivah of Etz Chaim, London); Rav Chaim Kreuzer (son of Rav Zundel Kreuzer); and Rav Eliyahu Chaim Sternbuch, av beis din of Bobov-45 in Jerusalem.

By Rebbes, For Rebbes

Yeshivah Tiferes Yisrael–Ruzhin became known as a yeshivah that was built “by rebbes, for rebbes.” Some of the notable alumni of the yeshivah include the grandson of the yeshivah’s founder, the current Boyaner Rebbe, Rav Nochum Dov Breyer; the previous Skulener Rebbe, Rav Yeshaya Yaakov Portugal; the current Rebbe of Skulen-Yerushalayim, Rav Shmuel Mordechai Portugal; the current Rebbe of Bohush, Rav Yaakov Dovid Mendel Leib Friedman; and the Rebbe of Ungvar–Modiin Illit, Rav Moshe Klein.

The Final Arrival

One of the few branches of Ruzhin-Sadigura that never made it to Eretz Yisrael was Shtefanesht. Rav Avraham Mattisyahu Friedman led the Shtefanesht dynasty for 64 years, before passing away childless in 1933. But even he received a Tel Aviv residence. In 1968 his remains were reinterred from Communist Romania to the Nachlat Yitzchak cemetery in Givatayim on the outskirts of Tel Aviv — the final resting place of all of the many leaders of Ruzhin-Sadigura who had come to the city. His kever remains a pilgrimage site for many to this very day.

Yehuda Geberer is a historian and tour guide of Jewish historical sites in Europe and Israel, and is the host of the Jewish History Soundbites podcast.

Dovi Safier is a business professional who enjoys researching unexplored chapters of Jewish history, with a primary focus on the yeshivos of the interwar period.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1054)