Yekutiel Yehudah Teitelbaum

Born in Drohobycz, Kingdom of Austria (today in Ukraine), Yekutiel Yehudah (Zalman Leib) Teitelbaum received his education in Torah and Talmud from his grandfather, Moses ben Tsvi Teitelbaum, who was known by the title of his best-known work Yismaḥ Moshe. Yekutiel Yehudah served as rabbi for the community of Stropkov (today in Slovakia) before taking over his grandfather’s position as rabbi in Sátoraljaújhely (today in Hungary) in 1841. Moving to the town of Sighet (today Sighetu Marmat,iei, Romania) in 1858, he founded a yeshiva and developed a following of Hasidim, becoming recognized as the rebbe of Sighet, among the greatest Hungarian tsadikim over the next several decades. Teitelbaum’s most famous work—and the one that serves as his moniker—is Yetev lev (5 vols., 1875; Heb., Yitav lev), a Hasidic-homiletic commentary on the Torah. Teitelbaum is often recognized as the father of Hungarian Hasidic antimodern zealotry. His son Hananya Yom-Tov Lipa (the Kedushas Yom Tov) succeeded him as Sighet’s rebbe.