Bobover Rebbe R' Shlomo Halberstam's 23th Yurtziet

This past Sunday August 4th, Rosh Chodesh Menachem Av was the 23rd yahrtzeit of the Bobover Rebbe, Rav Shlomo Halberstam (1908-2000), son of Rav Benzion, grandson of Rav Shlomo, founder of the Bobov dynasty. At the outbreak of World War II, he and his father escaped to Lemberg. On the fourth of Av 1942 his father was killed, and Rav Shlomo escaped to the Bochnia Ghetto. In Bochnia, the Rav lost his rebbetzin and two children. He managed to escape with his only surviving child, Reb Naftali, to Budapest, and then to Bucharest. Rav Shlomo is believed to have been the last remaining Chassidic rebbe to have survived the Holocaust.

Born in the Galicia region of central Europe, Rav Shlomo arrived in the United States in 1946, alone and indigent after his group was largely obliterated by the Nazis. During the war, Rav Shlomo dressed up as a nun in order to rescue other Jews, hiding them in the false bottom of a coal truck. He strove to create a Bobov that would match the Bobov that had been destroyed, working assiduously to build chassidim that his father would have been proud of. Rav Shlomo is widely credited with rebuilding the Bobover community in the United States.