Spiritual Leaders of Brooklyn's Jewish Communities

The 2023 Jewish Community Study of New York, carried out for UJA-Federation of New York, counted 462,000 Jewish people in Brooklyn, within a Jewish population of 1,372,000 in the eight-county New York area. The Williamsburg Bridge, which opened in 1903, was nicknamed the “Jews' highway” as many Jewish New Yorkers left the Lower East Side, and after the Second World War thousands of Hasidic Jews, many of them Holocaust survivors, began settling in Williamsburg. This chapter profiles eight rabbinic leaders, Hasidic rebbes, a Sephardic chief rabbi, a yeshiva founder and a Conservative congregational rabbi, and the Brooklyn institutions they led.^74,75,76

Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn

Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn (1880–1950) was the sixth Rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, a position he assumed on 21 March 1920 after the death of his father, Sholom Dovber Schneersohn. Born in Lyubavichi in the Russian Empire, he reached New York on 19 March 1940 aboard the Drottningholm, having left Europe by way of Riga, Stockholm and Gothenburg.⁷⁷

In Brooklyn he settled in Crown Heights. In 1940 the movement's organization, Agudas Chasidei Chabad, bought the building at 770 Eastern Parkway, which was completed in 1920 as a medical office, and he moved into a second-floor apartment there. During his Brooklyn years he established or expanded Central Tomchei Temimim, Machne Israel, the Kehot Publication Society, Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch and the Beis Rivkah and Beis Sarah girls' schools.^77,78

He died in Brooklyn on 28 January 1950, aged 69, and is buried at Montefiore Cemetery in Queens, at the gravesite known as the Ohel. His son-in-law, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, succeeded him.⁷⁷

• 1940Arrival in New York, 19 March
• 1940770 Eastern Parkway acquired by Chabad
• 1950Died in Brooklyn, aged 69

Menachem Mendel Schneerson

Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994) was born in Nikolaev in the Russian Empire (now Mykolaiv, Ukraine) and arrived in New York with his wife, Chaya Mushka, on 23 June 1941. During the 1940s he volunteered at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where he used his electrical engineering background to draw wiring diagrams for the USS Missouri and other classified work. His father-in-law appointed him chairman of Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch.^79,78

After Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn died in 1950 he was reluctant to accept the leadership, and about a year passed before he formally took it on, on 17 January 1951. He led the Lubavitch movement from an office on the main floor of 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights while living on President Street, several blocks away. In 1978 Congress and President Carter designated his birthday Education Day, U.S.A.^79,78

In August 1991 a car in his motorcade struck two children in Crown Heights, killing seven-year-old Gavin Cato; three days of unrest followed, documented as the Crown Heights riot. Some followers regarded him as the Messiah, a belief not shared by all Chabad adherents; he is reported to have rejected such claims, and scholars debate his own attitude. He died at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan on 12 June 1994, aged 92, and is buried beside his father-in-law at the Ohel in Queens.^88,79

• 1951Formally assumed leadership, 17 January
• 770Eastern Parkway, Crown Heights
• 1994Died aged 92, 12 June

Joel Teitelbaum

Joel Teitelbaum (1887–1979) was the founder and first Grand Rebbe of the Satmar dynasty. Born in Máramarossziget (now Sighetu Marmației, Romania), he joined the Kastner train in 1944, which was diverted to Bergen-Belsen; he later reached Switzerland and sailed to Haifa, arriving in September 1945.⁸⁰

After the war he came to New York and settled in Williamsburg; one source dates his arrival to September 1946, another to 1947. In April 1948 he established Congregation Yetev Lev in Brooklyn, and under his leadership the community built yeshivas, ritual baths and synagogues in the 1950s and 1960s. He oversaw the Yiddish newspaper Der Yid, and the first families settled in 1974 in Kiryas Joel, in Monroe, New York, a village named for him.^80,76

Teitelbaum opposed Zionism and the State of Israel on religious grounds. His book Vayoel Moshe (1958) argues that Zionism is prohibited under Jewish law, an argument he extended in Al HaGeulah VeAl HaTemurah (1967). He died at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York on 19 August 1979, aged 92, and is buried in Kiryas Joel. His nephew Moshe Teitelbaum became leader.⁸⁰

• 1948Congregation Yetev Lev established in Brooklyn
• 1958Vayoel Moshe published
• 1974First families settle in Kiryas Joel

Zalman Leib Teitelbaum

Zalman Leib Teitelbaum was born in Williamsburg on 23 December 1951 and is one of two Grand Rebbes of Satmar. He leads the Williamsburg faction from Congregation Yetev Lev D'Satmar at 152 Rodney Street and is dean of the Satmar yeshiva in Queens. According to a published profile, his community includes about ten smaller synagogues and schools serving some 10,000 students.⁸¹

His father, Moshe Teitelbaum (1914–2006), was proclaimed Satmar Rebbe on 8 August 1980 after Joel Teitelbaum's death. Aaron, the eldest son, was appointed chief rabbi of Kiryas Joel in 1984 and was long considered the heir apparent; in May 1999 their father designated Zalman Leib to lead the Williamsburg congregation.^89,81

After Moshe Teitelbaum died in April 2006, each brother was declared Rebbe by his supporters. Litigation over the Brooklyn congregation's assets followed; in 2007 the court declined to decide, leaving the status quo in place. The sect now operates as two independent groups, one in Williamsburg and one in Kiryas Joel under Aaron Teitelbaum. Zalman Leib Teitelbaum is living; in August 2026 he gave the annual address commemorating Joel Teitelbaum's death.^81,89,90

• 1999Designated to lead the Williamsburg congregation
• 2006Moshe Teitelbaum dies; two Rebbes declared
• 10,000Students in the Williamsburg network (per cited profile)

Shlomo Halberstam

Shlomo Halberstam, the third Bobover Rebbe, was born in 1907 or 1908 (sources differ) in Galicia, the eldest son of Ben Zion Halberstam, the second Rebbe of Bobov, who was killed during the Holocaust. He lost his wife and several of his children in the war, and led Bobov from 1941 until his death.^82,83

He arrived in the United States in 1946 with few resources and began with a small yeshiva for sixteen boys on Manhattan's West Side; the community later moved to Brooklyn, first to Bedford-Stuyvesant and then to Borough Park, where he built a synagogue and yeshiva. He is credited with rebuilding the dynasty's institutions in the United States, Israel and London, including boys' and girls' schools and summer camps, and he greeted newly arrived survivors at the piers.^83,82,91

He died on 2 August 2000, aged 92, at a hospital in Borough Park; the Jewish Telegraphic Agency then counted about 20,000 Bobover Jews in the neighborhood. His son Naftali Halberstam (1931–2005) succeeded him. After Naftali's death a beth din ruled in 2007 that Benzion Aryeh Leibish Halberstam was the fifth Rebbe, headquartered on 48th Street, while Mordechai Dovid Unger leads the separate Bobov-45 group.^83,91

• 1946Arrival in the United States
• 20,000Bobover Jews in Borough Park (2000, JTA)
• 1941–2000Years as Bobover Rebbe

Jacob S. Kassin

Jacob S. Kassin (1900–1994) was born in the Old City of Jerusalem into a family of Aleppan descent, from a line of rabbis dating to the mid-sixteenth century. Beginning in 1933 he served as the first Chief Rabbi of the Syrian Jewish community in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, a tenure the source puts at 62 years.⁸⁴

He was a qualified dayan (rabbinic judge), shochet and mohel, and a scholar of Kabbalah who wrote numerous books and legal decisions, gaining international recognition as an expert on Jewish law. In Brooklyn he ran Magen David Congregation in Bensonhurst and the community's Talmud Torah, and he formed its Bet Din (rabbinical court). The source describes him as the rabbi, among the community's many, whose decisions carried final authority and who maintained unity.⁸⁴

He died of heart failure at Maimonides Medical Center on 6 December 1994.⁸⁴

• 1933Became first Chief Rabbi of the Syrian community in Bensonhurst
• 1994Died, 6 December

Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz

Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz (1886–1948) was born in Világ, Austria-Hungary (today Svetlice, Slovakia), and moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 1920 after seven years in Scranton, Pennsylvania.⁸⁵

Yeshiva Torah Vodaath had opened in 1918 in Williamsburg as an elementary school on Keap Street. It floundered until the early 1920s, when Mendlowitz became its principal; he headed it until 1948, adding a high school, a postgraduate program and, in 1926, a mesivta, and later a rabbinical seminary. He also released a number of his top pupils to help found Mesivta Chaim Berlin.^85,92

Mendlowitz founded Torah U'Mesorah, a national umbrella organization for Jewish day schools. He died on 7 September 1948. Torah Vodaath moved to 206 Wilson Street, where it stayed until 1967, and its elementary school moved to East 9th Street in 1974; the yeshiva is now at 425 East 9th Street in Flatbush.^85,92

• 1918Torah Vodaath opens in Williamsburg
• 1926Mesivta (yeshiva high school) opens
• 1948Died, 7 September

Israel H. Levinthal

Israel Herbert Levinthal (1888–1982) was born in Vilna, then in the Russian Empire, and served Brooklyn congregations from 1910: Temple B'nai Shalom (1910–1915) and Temple Petach Tikvah (1915–1919). In 1919 he joined the Brooklyn Jewish Center, of which he was a founder, and was elected its rabbi for life.⁸⁶

The Center stood on Eastern Parkway. Its building was dedicated in 1920 at a cost of about a million dollars and included a synagogue, gymnasium, banquet hall, classrooms and a swimming pool; membership peaked at about 3,500. The Center's own history says he led the congregation until 1954, when he became Rabbi Emeritus, and the main sanctuary was named for him in 1974.^87,86

Beyond the Center he founded and was first president of the Brooklyn Board of Rabbis (1929–1931), was president of the Rabbinical Assembly (1930–1932) and of the Brooklyn Jewish Community Council (1940–1944), and was a visiting professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary (1947–1962). He died on 31 October 1982. As Jewish families moved to the suburbs the Center declined, and its building was sold in 1985 to Oholei Torah, which still uses it.^86,87

• 1920Brooklyn Jewish Center building dedicated
• 3,500Peak membership of the Center
• 1982Died, 31 October

1. 1903

   The Williamsburg Bridge opens, nicknamed the “Jews' highway”.

2. 1918

   Yeshiva Torah Vodaath opens in Williamsburg.

3. 1920

   The Brooklyn Jewish Center building on Eastern Parkway is dedicated.

4. 1933

   Jacob S. Kassin becomes Chief Rabbi of the Syrian Jewish community in Bensonhurst.

5. 1940

   Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn arrives in New York; Chabad acquires 770 Eastern Parkway.

6. 1948

   Joel Teitelbaum establishes Congregation Yetev Lev in Brooklyn.

7. 1951

   Menachem Mendel Schneerson formally assumes leadership of Chabad-Lubavitch.

8. 2006

   Moshe Teitelbaum dies; Satmar divides into two groups.

9. 2007

   A beth din recognizes Benzion Halberstam as Bobover Rebbe; Bobov-45 continues separately.