Religionצבי אלימלך הלברשטאם

Zvi Elimelech Halberstam

Zvi Elimelech Halberstam is a rabbi who has led the Sanz Hasidic community in Israel as the Sanz Rebbe since 1994, with his court in Kiryat Sanz in Netanya.

born 1952Leading the Sanz Hasidic communityPresidency of Laniado HospitalChairing Mifal HaShas

Born: 21 November 1952, United States
Occupation: rabbi

Zvi Elimelech Halberstam was born in 1952 in United States

Halberstam was born in 1952 in Brooklyn, New York. His father was Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam, the first Sanz-Klausenberger Rebbe, and his mother was Chaya Nechama, daughter of Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Ungar. He is named after an ancestor, Rabbi Zvi Elimelech Shapira of Dinov.

He studied with his father at the Sanz yeshiva in Netanya. At 17 his father gave him a rabbinic certificate after an oral exam on over 1,000 pages of Talmud. In 1970 he married Chaya Sarah Unsdorfer and then studied at the Sanz kollel.

His father appointed him rabbi of Kiryat Sanz in Netanya. After his father died in 1994, he became Rebbe. His father's will divided leadership of the community between him and his brother Shmuel Dovid in Brooklyn.

He serves as president of Laniado Hospital, heads the world Mifal HaShas, and sits on the Council of Torah Sages of Agudat Yisrael. The community has branches across Israel, the United States, England and Belgium, and a new Kiryat Sanz in Tiberias opened in 2014. In 2007 he met Satmar Rebbe Aaron Teitelbaum after years of separation between the two groups.