Belz (Hasidic Dynasty) - Rebuilding The Dynasty in Israel

Rebuilding The Dynasty in Israel

Although he had lost his entire family—including his wife, children, grandchildren and in-laws and their families—to the Nazis, Rebbe Aharon re-established his Hasidic court in Tel Aviv, where there was a small Hasidic community. Both he and Rabbi Mordechai (who had lost his wife and daughter) remarried, but only Rabbi Mordechai had a child, Yissachar Dov Rokeach (II), in 1948. Rabbi Mordechai suddenly died a year later at the age of 47. Rebbe Aharon took his brother's son under his wing to groom him as the future successor to the Belz dynasty.

Like some of the other groups originating in Poland, Belzer Hasdism was nearly wiped out by the Holocaust. Some Hasidic followers from other communities joined Belz after the war and following the deaths of their rebbes. Belz, like Ger and Satmar, was comparatively fortunate in that its leadership remained intact and survived the war, as opposed to many other Hasidic groups which suffered losses both in terms of rank-and-file supporters, as well as the physical decapitation of their leaders.

Rebbe Aharon became an acknowledged leader of Haredi Judaism in Israel. He laid the groundwork for the spread of Belzer Hasidism through the establishment of schools and yeshivas in Tel Aviv, Bnei Brak and Jerusalem. In 1950 the Rebbe moved his court to the Jerusalem neighborhood of Katamon and established a yeshiva there. His sights set on expanding Belz, he drew up plans for a large yeshiva and study hall in downtown Jerusalem, on a hill behind the original Shaarei Tzedek Hospital. The cornerstone was laid in 1954 and the building was completed in the summer of 1957. One month later, however, the Rebbe died.

Tens of thousands of admirers followed his casket to his burial site in Jerusalem. His nephew, Yissachar Dov, was nine years old at the time. For the next nine years the movement did not have an active Rebbe. Yissachar Dov married at the age of 17 to the daughter of the Vizhnitzer Rebbe, Rabbi Moshe Yehoshua Hager, and moved to Bnei Brak to be close to his new father-in-law. A year later, he returned to Jerusalem to assume leadership of the Belz movement. His son and heir, Aharon Mordechai Rokeach was born in 1975.