The courts of Galicia, Bukovina and Hungary: Ruzhin, Belz, Sanz, Satmar
In the south Hasidism became dynastic: the court passed to a son, and each acquired its own face — from the royal splendour of Ruzhin to the poverty and charity of Sanz.
R. Israel of Ruzhin, great-grandson of the Maggid of Mezeritch, kept his court like a sovereign's: carriage, house, retinue. He explained it by saying the rebbe's grandeur was not his own but the community's honour. Accused in the killing of two informers, he fled Russia and settled in Sadigura in Bukovina; the Ruzhin–Sadigura courts descend from there.
Sanz was the direct opposite. R. Chaim Halberstam, the Divrei Chaim, was known for giving away everything he received and died leaving no money. In the 1860s a bitter dispute broke out between Sanz and Sadigura over the splendour of courts and what is permitted to a rebbe; it split Galician Hasidism for years and remains one of the most painful internal conflicts of the age.
Belz took a third road. R. Shalom Rokeach, the Sar Shalom, built the great synagogue of Belz and set his court on strictness of custom: a Belzer Hasid is known by order, not by wonders. Belz became the main support of Galician orthodoxy against the Haskalah.
In Hungary the line begins with the Yismach Moshe, R. Moshe Teitelbaum of Ujhely. His descendant R. Yoel Teitelbaum moved the Satmar court to New York after the Shoah and became the most consistent opponent of Zionism among Hasidic leaders; he also built in America the one community that preserved the pre-war Hungarian way of life whole.
📜How we know
§Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Avot 4:1 — 'Who is rich? He who is content with his portion' — the argument against splendid courts
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Divrei Chaim, Yoreh De'ah — the responsa of R. Chaim of Sanz, and his position in the dispute with Sadigura
- Yismach Moshe, Va'era — the beginning of the Hungarian Teitelbaum line
- Vayoel Moshe, the essay on the Three Oaths — the Satmar case against Zionism — the Three Oaths
Documents of the period
- Documents of the Sanz–Sadigura dispute, 1860s — letters and proclamations from both sides — the course of the conflict itself
Basis: tradition.
👤People and places
Rabbi Yisrael of Ruzhin · Divrei Chaim of Sanz · Sar Shalom of Belz · Yismach Moshe — Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum · Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum of Satmar · the Maggid of Mezritch · Hasidism · Acharonim