Biography
Born in the Old City of Jerusalem, Koenig became a Chabad Hasid during his teens. He was drawn to Breslov by Rabbi Abraham Sternhartz, a key figure in the chain of transmission of Breslov teachings from the early generations of the movement to the later ones. Sternhartz was the great-grandson of Reb Noson Sternhartz, who was the leading disciple of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. Sternhartz immigrated from Uman, Ukraine to Jerusalem in 1936 and taught many students, producing Breslov leaders for coming generations. Koenig became one of Sternhartz's leading disciples.
At age 18, Koenig married Esther Yehudit, the daughter of Rabbi Dovid Moshe Ehrentrau of Jerusalem. His mentor, Abraham Sternhartz, performed the wedding ceremony.
When the Jews of the Old City were expelled by Jordanian forces during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Koenig followed Sternhartz to the neighborhood of Katamon. He eventually made his home in Meah Shearim.
It was Sternhartz who entrusted Koenig with the mission of establishing a Breslov community in Safed. Koenig gave his life for this cause, raising funds and working to establish this Torah center, beginning in 1967.
Read more about this topic: Gedaliah Aharon Koenig
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)