How did a man who lost his wife and all 11 of their children in the Holocaust and survived being shot, become both father and mother to fellow survivors in Germany’s displaced persons camps? Where did he find the strength and will to remarry, have five children, establish schools and seminaries, and revive a decimated rabbinical dynasty, first in New York and then in Israel, where he established a thriving enclave in Netanya?
Some would call it a miracle and they wouldn’t be wrong. A miracle is an unexpected, extraordinary and welcome event, inexplicable by scientific or natural laws. It is, therefore, attributed to divine agency.
“A Jew who doesn’t believe in miracles is not a realist,” said David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, who was born in Poland and immigrated to the Promised Land in 1906, around the same time that Yekusiel Yehuda Halberstam was born in Rudnik, Poland. Halberstam’s great grandfather was Rav Chaim Halberstam, also known as the Divrei Chaim for his authorship of that book; he was the leader of Hasidic Jews of Sanz, the “Sondzer Rebbe” or simply “the Sondzer.”
Klausenburg, in northern Romania, was part of that short-lived empire and became Cluj when the empire was dissolved. The aforementioned great-grandson became its Chasidic leader, the Klausenberger Rebbe. He served there for nearly two decades until 1944, when the Nazis forced the Jews of Cluj into a ghetto, along with Jews from surrounding areas.
The deportation of the Cluj Ghetto’s 18,000 souls to Auschwitz began in mid-May, and within a month, almost all had been murdered, including most of the Klausenberger Rebbe’s immediate family. One son would survive, only to die in Dachau days after the liberation.
The Rebbe had been shot in the arm but staunched the bleeding with weeds and vowed that if he survived, he would build a hospital. That he survived the injury is miraculous, given how many prisoners died of wounds, especially if they became infected. What is even more miraculous is his ability to overcome the psychological assault of losing his nearest and dearest: close and distant relatives, scholars, students and most of his community. Such extreme loss would have felled a weaker man, but his faith strengthened his resolve to serve God and his people. He would devote the rest of his life to Torah, mitzvot and acts of lovingkindness.
Given the huge number of concentration camp victims who died after liberation, the Rebbe’s immediate concern was to save as many Jews as possible, including those on the brink of death, and others who, thinking they had nothing left to live for, were on the verge of spiritual and moral decay. He would make every effort to infuse them with the will to live Jewishly, that is, to live lives filled with joyous wonder and gratitude.
Little, if anything, elicits more joy, wonder, promise and gratitude than a newborn child. His hope was that survivors would find solace, even joy, in Judaism by following the command to “choose life” by marrying, bearing and raising Torah-observant children.
Some Holocaust survivors attribute their survival to luck, while others speak of miraculous events, even if they scoff at the idea of actual miracles. Most mention hope and/or faith in God as the one essential. Whether one was religiously observant or an atheist, optimism that undergirded hope in the most hopeless situations was essential to survival. Religious Jews were strengthened by their belief in God and/or miracles, even as they faced death.
The will to survive what was almost impossible to overcome certainly also proved a determining factor. Henry Ford, a rapacious antisemite who was instrumental in putting the Nazis on the road to the war that was far more destructive than WWI, said, “Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right.”
One person who thought he could was the Klausenberger Rebbe, Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam, zt”l. Although he barely survived, and lost his nearest and dearest, he retained his faith in God and the Promised Land, Thus he proceeded to survive with unyielding determination.
He did not choose Netanya for its consumer offerings and beautiful beaches but because it offered business opportunities for his community. It was Israel’s Diamond District and Chasidim worked as diamond cutters and merchants when those stones were highly valued. After arriving in America in 1947, he established a community in Brooklyn but made aliyah in 1960, along with many in his community. He built an enclave, which he named Kiryat Sanz. There, he created two yeshivas, one Ashkenazi-Chasidic, the other Sephardic. Eventually, he built a hospital, as he had vowed to do.
Because rebuilding and reinvigorating Jewish life was primary, his greatest concern was for mothers and children. The Laniado Hospital and the Medical Center of Sanz began as a gynecological-obstetric and pediatric hospital. From 1976 to 2024, more than 200,000 children were born there.
I was greatly privileged to learn more about the great man (whose DNA I share through my paternal grandmother) from a wonderful woman I first met online. Shira Liebowitz, a resident of Kiryat Sanz, and I are both members of the Association of Holocaust Organizations, and when her name appeared in a group email, I thought someone who had grown up in my New Jersey community had become the director of a Holocaust center. I was wrong, but it was a serendipitous guess.
Shira knew my brother and sister-in-law In Netanya, as she sometimes attends their shul. We agreed to meet the next time I was in Israel.
Despite the daily alerts and sirens that sent us scurrying to the safe room, I was greatly privileged to be in Israel last October for the High Holidays. I didn’t do as much traveling as usual, but did get to spend some time with family, friends and colleagues, including Shira.
We met by chance and briefly in shul on Rosh Hashanah afternoon and agreed to meet the following day. Shira offered to give me a tour of Kiryat Sanz, of which I’d only seen a bit on prior visits. I met Shira the morning after Rosh Hashanah in the lobby of the building my brother and sister-in-law live in. Because of my work in Holocaust studies, Shira hoped to introduce me to a Kindertransport survivor who lived in the building. What I thought would be a brief meeting turned out to last much longer, as over cake and tea he described his amazing life.
We then proceeded with the tour of Kiryat Sanz, where I would learn about my distant relative, the Klausenberger Rebbe. There was much to learn. Terribly upset that some of his followers had harassed secular drivers on Shabbos, his reprimand was couched as a lesson. Warmth was more welcome than wrath. His followers were to open their windows and sing. The Rebbe believed that the sound of joy would be more effective and valuable. Joy in worship and in the fulfillment of commandments was of great importance to the Rebbe.
Most people understand that giving is as, if not more, rewarding than receiving. The Klausenberger Rebbe certainly practiced that, setting up schools and a seminary for those whose education the war had curtailed. He procured food, clothing, even a wedding gown which numerous brides wore when they married in the DP camp. He wanted these weddings to be as joyful as possible. At these occasions, elation at having survived was mixed with grief over all the irrevocable losses.
By the time we left the Liebowitz-Schmidt household to continue touring Kiryat Sanz, it was afternoon. We noted how many new buildings were cropping up. The Rebbe’s dream of creating a large community in Israel is constantly being fulfilled and reinvigorated.
On our walk, we stopped at House of Hope, a beautifully-run “orphanage.” Its genesis goes back half a century when a widower appealed to the Rebbe to help his three young children, whom he was unable to care for and about to abandon. The Rebbe realized the necessity of providing for Jewish children of all ethnicities and acted on it immediately.
We had not expected to go inside when we stopped at the gate for Shira to tell me about House of Hope. We were ready to continue the tour when two beautiful young girls approached and politely greeted us, inviting us inside.The security guard buzzed us in and the general director, Bracha Runes, welcomed us warmly. She gave us an ad hoc tour of the dorms, dining rooms, and much of the building. One of the things I learned from what turned out to be a wonderful day is that Bracha is also a Halberstam descendant. The Sondzers-Klausenbergers had been, and continue to be, prolific, as are their descendants and followers. Although we’re not all on the same religious spectrum, it’s interesting to note how many of us, and other descendants, of Shoah survivors have chosen the healing professions, in hopes of helping to heal the broken world. It’s marvelous, bordering on miraculous.
The Rebbe’s son from his second marriage, (Admor) Avi Elimelech Halberstam, is now the Rebbe of Kiryat Sanz.
Jews worldwide have yet to achieve their 1939 population of nearly 17 million. Thanks in large part to Chasidism, we’re getting there.
Barbara Wind is a writer, speaker and Holocaust-related independent scholar, curator and consultant.
