Aryeh Leib of Oźarów

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ARYEH LEIB OF OŹARÓW

ARYEH LEIB OF OŹARÓW (d. 1833), ḥasidic ẓaddik, founder of the Oźarów dynasty of ẓaddikim in Poland. He was a pupil of *Jacob Isaac ha-Ḥozeh ("the seer") of Lublin and of his father-in-law Reuben ha-Levi of Dzierzgowice, author of Duda'im ba-Sadeh (1858). He became a ẓaddik in Oźarów in 1815 and later moved to Opole, but never gained a large following. His teachings are quoted by his grandson Aryeh Leib in Birkat Tov (1938). The Oźarów dynasty continued until World War ii, when most of its members perished in the *Holocaust. One of his descendants was the rabbinical author moses jehiel epstein of Oźarów (d. 1971), who settled in Israel in 1953. He was awarded the Israel Prize of 1967 for his ten-volume series Esh Dat (1951), discourses on the ḥasidic approach to the concepts of "love of Israel" and "love of Torah," and Be'er Moshe (1964), a commentary on the Torah.

[Itzhak Alfassi]

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