Moshe Teitelbaum (Satmar)

Moshe Teitelbaum
Rebbe Moshe Teitelbaum and Rabbi Steinman
Born	(1914-11-01)November 1, 1914 Újfehértó, Hungary
Died	April 24, 2006(2006-04-24) (aged 91) Williamsburg, Brooklyn, United States
Resting place	Kiryas Joel
Nationality	American
Occupation	Rabbi

Moshe (Moses) Teitelbaum (November 1, 1914 – April 24, 2006) was a Hasidic rebbe and the world leader of the Satmar Hasidim.

Moshe Teitelbaum was born on November 17, 1914 in Újfehértó, Hungary. He was the second son of Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Teitelbaum, author of Atzei Chaim, the previous Sigheter Rebbe. His mother Bracha Sima, hailed from the prominent Halbershtam family. Moshe and his older brother, Yekusiel Yehuda Teitelbaum, were orphaned in 1926, when they were eleven and fourteen, respectively. Moshe was raised by family friends and relatives, including his uncle, Joel Teitelbaum, and his grandfather, Rabbi Shulem Eliezer Halberstam of Ratzfert.

Teitalbaum received rabbinical ordination and was appointed dean of the Karacscka yeshiva. In 1936, Teitelbaum married his cousin Leah Meir, daughter of Rabbi Hanoch Heinoch Meir of Karecska. In 1939, he became the rabbi of Senta, Yugoslavia (now Serbia).

In late spring 1944, the Hungarian government, assisted by Nazi forces led by Adolf Eichmann, began deporting Jews en-masse. Teitelbaum and his wife Leah were sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where his wife and three children were killed, and he nearly died. Teitelbaum was then transferred to the Brabag plant in , and afterwards to Theresienstadt, where he was liberated in 1945.

In 1946 Teitelbaum married another cousin Pessel Leah, the daughter of Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum of Volovo. Pessel Leah's entire family was killed in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

The couple initially moved back to Senta, where Teitelbaum led a congregation before the war. When he found out that his brother Yekusiel Yehuda Teitelbaum died in the Holocaust, he decided to fill his brother's position as rabbi of Sighet. Soon thereafter, they were forced to flee Communist persecution, leaving for Prague and then setting sail for New York City, where they arrived in fall 1947. There Teitelbaum became known as the Sigheter Rebbe, leading Sighet Chasiddus, previously led by his ancestors. He initially established a beth midrash, Atzei Chaim Siget in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and later moved to Borough Park, Brooklyn in 1966.