Schwartz, Abraham Judah Ha-Kohen
SCHWARTZ, ABRAHAM JUDAH HA-KOHEN
SCHWARTZ, ABRAHAM JUDAH HA-KOHEN (1824–1883), Hungarian rabbi. Schwartz was a pupil of Moses Sofer and of Benjamin Wolf Levi. From 1861 to 1881 he served as rabbi of Bergszasz and for a number of years in his native town of Mad. He was an active participant in the rabbinical gathering in Nagymihaly in 1866 and at the congress held in Budapest in 1869. Although his personality was molded by the atmosphere of Pressburg, which was opposed to Ḥasidism, after a visit which he made to the head of the ḥasidic dynasty of Nowy Sacz (Zanz), Ḥayyim Halberstam, he became deeply attached to him and to Ḥasidism. He spent the festival of Shavuot in Zanz for 26 successive years. He also had connections with Isaac Meir Alter, the head of the ḥasidic dynasty of Gur (Gora *Kalwaria). Although he left only one work, responsa Kol Aryeh (1904), its influence on the rabbis of Hungary was very great. One of his grandchildren, Dov Beer Spitzer, wrote his biography – Toledot Kol Aryeh (1940).
bibliography:
N. Ben-Menahem, in: Aresheth, 4 (1966), 418–46; idem, Be-Sha'arei Sefer (1967), 107–15, 188–90.
[Naphtali Ben-Menahem]