Avrohom Yaakov Friedman

Avrohom Yaakov Friedman was born in 1928 in Vienna

Friedman was born in Vienna in 1928. His father, Mordechai Sholom Yosef Friedman, was the fourth Sadigura Rebbe, and the family line went back to the Ruzhiner Rebbe. The family moved to Przemyśl, Poland, and in 1939 he and his mother joined his father in Palestine.

As a teenager he studied at yeshivas in Tel Aviv and Petah Tikva. He received rabbinic ordination from Yehoshua Menachem Ehrenberg. In 1953 he married Tzipora Faige Feldman, and they had one son and two daughters.

In 1956 he followed his father to Crown Heights, Brooklyn. He stayed there as rabbi of the community after his father returned to Israel. In 1973 he moved back to Israel and headed the Ruzhin yeshiva in Bnei Brak.

After his father died in 1979, he became Rebbe and joined the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah. He kept the court on Pinkus Street in Tel Aviv and opened Sadigura centers in several Israeli cities, London, Antwerp and New York. In 2005 he moved his court to Bnei Brak.

He supported Agudat Yisrael and opposed the Oslo Accords and the disengagement plan. In 1995 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. He died in 2013 and was buried in Givatayim.