Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam - Remarriage

Remarriage

On Friday, August 22, 1947, he married his second wife, Chaya Nechama Ungar, the orphaned daughter of the Nitra Rav, Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Ungar. The match was made by Rabbi Michael Ber Weissmandl, Rabbi Ungar's son-in-law who had survived the Holocaust and re-established his yeshiva in Somerville, New Jersey. The tenayim were held in Weissmandl's Nitra Yeshiva, while the chuppah and dancing were held at Yeshivas She'aris Hapleitah, the Rebbe's yeshiva in Somerville.

Although the Klausenberger Rebbe had gone to great lengths to allow agunos and widowers to remarry after the Holocaust, relying on testimonies from people who had seen their spouses being led "to the left" in the Nazi selections rather than documented evidence, the Rebbe did not rely on the testimonies of his first wife's death. Instead, he sought the approval of 100 rabbis and sat on the ground for half an hour in mourning for his first wife before he remarried.

He and his second wife had five daughters and two sons. His sons, Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech Halberstam and Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Halberstam, succeeded him, respectively, as Sanzer Rebbe of Netanya and Klausenberger-Sanz Rebbe of New York.

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