Rabbi Yehoshua Rokeach of Belz רבי יהושע רוקח מבעלזא
the second rebbe of Belz; with him a chasidic court first entered politics
The son and successor of Rabbi Shalom Rokeach; he took Belz in 1855 and led it for almost forty years.
The court entered politics. By the 1870s Galicia lived under the Austrian constitution: elections, newspapers, community councils. The maskilim made use of this, the observant did not. In 1878, together with Rabbi Shimon Sofer of Krakow—the Chatam Sofer's son—he founded Machzikei HaDas: an organisation with a charter, a Yiddish newspaper and its own men in the Galician diet.
This was a turn, and not everyone accepted it: before him a rebbe did not call his chasidim to vote. The argument was plain—if the observant do not come to the elections, others will decide for them. Orthodox politics in Eastern Europe begins with Machzikei HaDas; Agudah, thirty-four years later, was built on the same argument.
He died on 22 Shevat 1894.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- The Belz tradition on the second rebbe — the years of his leadership of the court
Documents of the period
- The charter and newspaper of Machzikei HaDas, from 1878 — the first Orthodox organisation of Galicia
Scholarship
- Studies of Orthodox politics in Galicia — why the court went to the elections
Basis: documents and evidence.