Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach—the fifth Belzer Rebbe רבי יששכר דב רוקח — האדמו״ר החמישי מבעלזא
the fifth rebbe of Belz; he took the court at eighteen and rebuilt it anew
He was born in the Land of Israel in 1948, the year of the state. His father was Rabbi Mordechai Rokeach of Bilgoraj, the younger brother of Rabbi Aharon; the two of them came out of Europe in 1944, having lost all the rest.
Nine years without a rebbe. Rabbi Aharon died in 1957. His only son had perished in the Shoah, and there was no successor. The Belz chasidim gathered for nine years without a rebbe—a rare case in the chasidic world, and in this reference it is named a break rather than passed over in silence. In 1966 the court was taken up by the nephew, eighteen years old.
What he built. A court of which only a handful were left in Europe he rebuilt anew in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak: schools, yeshivot, houses for families. The great Belz synagogue in Jerusalem, built from the 1980s, is among the largest synagogue buildings in the country.
This reference speaks of what has been, and does not count what changes today from year to year.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- The Belz tradition on the break of 1957–1966 — nine years of the court without a rebbe
Documents of the period
- Reports on the building of the Belz synagogue in Jerusalem — how the court was rebuilt in the Land of Israel
Basis: documents and evidence.