Yekusiel Yehuda Teitelbaum (I)

Rabbi Yekusiel Yehuda Teitelbaum (1808–1883), known as the Yetev Lev, was a Hasidic Rebbe in Austria-Hungary. He was the son of Rabbi Eliezer Nison Teitelbaum, rabbi of Drubitsh, who was the son of the Yismach Moshe (Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum; famous Orthodox rabbis are sometimes known by the titles of their religious works) of Ujhel, Hungary. He was to become the grandfather of Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, the rebbe of Satmar who migrated to the United States after the Holocaust.

Yekusiel Yehuda, also known by his Yiddish equivalent names as Zalman Leib, was appointed as the rabbi of Stropkov (1833), Ujhel (1841) and Drubitsh (1856). When the town of Sighet, Hungary, was looking for a new rabbi, he offered himself as a candidate and was appointed to that post in 1858. He also served as a chasidic rebbe and became known as the rebbe of Siget.

Family life

Yekusiel Yehuda married Ruchl, daughter of Rabbi Moshe Dovid Ashkenazi of Toltsva. Their sons were Chananya Yomtov Lipa, author of Kedishas Yomtov, who succeeded his father in Siget, Avrohom Aharon, who became the rabbi of Kolbasov, Moshe Yosef, the rabbi of Ujhel and Eliyohu Betsalel, rabbi of Tetsh (Tyachiv, Ukraine) (see: Tetsh (Hasidic dynasty)). They also had three daughters.

Teachings and published works

He was the author of Yetev Lev, a Hasidic commentary on the Torah, which he originally published anonymously, Yetev Ponim on the Jewish holidays, responsa Avnei Tsedek and Rav Tuv. Reb Boruch of Gorlitz, son of the Divrei Chaim of Sanz, married his daughter. Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam of Klausenberg was his great-grandson from that marriage.

Sources

Levi Grossman (1943). שם ושארית Shem uSheirith. Jerusalem.