Maavar Yabok / Chibat Yerushalayim / Kaftor VaFerach – Three Books from the Library of Rebbe Yoel Teitelbaum of Satmar

Maavar Yabok / Chibat Yerushalayim / Kaftor VaFerach – Three Books from the Library of Rebbe Yoel Teitelbaum of Satmar

Three books from the library of Rebbe Yoel Teitelbaum of Satmar, two of which are bound in the original bindings from the Rebbe's library in the United States [made ca. 1950s].

All the books also contain catalogue inscriptions made during the arrangement of the Satmar Rebbe's library in his home in the United States. All the books contain a stamp reading: "Yoel Teitelbaum, Rabbi of Irshava and the region". [We surmise that these stamps were placed on the Satmar Rebbe's books at a date later than his tenure in Irshava – see Lot 185]. One of the books contains the stamp of his son-in-law, Rebbe Chananiah Yom Tov Lipa Mayer-Teitelbaum of Sassov.

• Maavar Yabok, practices for the day of death, confessions and prayers, ethics and kabbalah, by R. Aharon Berechiah of Modena. Vilna: widow and brothers Romm, 1911.

• Chibat Yerushalayim, geography and history of the cities of the Holy Land, holy sites and gravesites of Tzaddikim, by R. Chaim HaLevi Horowitz. [Königsberg (Kaliningrad): printer not indicated, 1858]. Imitation of first edition. Details on title page identical to edition of Jerusalem, 1844. With approbations from 1844 edition.

- Bound with leaves 35-40 of Einot Mayim by R. Menachem Mendel Bodek. [Lviv: David Hirsh Schrenzel, 1856].

• Kaftor VaFerach, Part II, by R. Eshtori HaParchi. Jerusalem: Avraham Moshe Lunz, 1899. Several leaves appear twice. Stamps of R. "Chananiah Yom Tov Lipa Mayer, Rabbi of Bűdszentmihály" (son-in-law of the Rebbe of Satmar), and signatures of R. "Moshe Aryeh Stern".

3 volumes. Varying size and condition. Overall good to fair-good condition. Stains and wear. Tears and open tears, affecting text. Worming. Two books with old bindings (of the Rebbe's library) and one with a new leather binding.

Maavar Yabok: Large open tear to title page and leaf 5, and lacking leaves 2-4 and leaf 8 of first sequence. Chibat Yerushalayim: Damage and wear, with many open tears, repaired with tape.

Rebbe Yoel Teitelbaum of Satmar (1887-1979), a leader of his generation, president of the Edah HaCharedit in Jerusalem and leader of American Orthodox Jewry, one of the founding pillars of Chassidic Jewry after the Holocaust. Born in Sighet, he was the son of Rebbe Chananiah Yom Tov Lipa, the Kedushat Yom Tov, and grandson of Rebbe Yekutiel Yehudah, the Yitav Lev, who both served as rabbis of Sighet (Sighetu Marmației) and were leaders of Chassidic Jewry in the Maramureș region. He was renowned from his youth for his sharpness and intellectual capacities, as well as for his holiness and outstanding purity. After his marriage to the daughter of Rebbe Avraham Chaim Horowitz of Polaniec, he settled in Satmar and taught Torah and Chassidut to an elite group of disciples and followers. He served as rabbi of Irshava (1911-1915, 1922-1926), Karoly (Carei; from 1925), and Satmar (Satu Mare; from 1934), managing in each of these places a large yeshiva and Chassidic court. He stood at the helm of faithful, uncompromising Orthodox Jewry in the Maramureș region. During the Holocaust, he was rescued through the famous Kastner Train, and after a journey through Bergen-Belsen, Switzerland and Eretz Israel, he reached the United States, where he established the largest Chassidic group in the world.

The Rebbe's only daughter to survive the Holocaust, Rebbetzin Chayah Roiza Teitelbaum-Mayer, wife of Rebbe Chananiah Yom Tov Lipa of Sassov, escaped the Holocaust with her husband, reaching Eretz Israel through Romania. Her husband established the Yitav Lev yeshiva in Jerusalem and served as rabbi of the Ohel Rachel Satmar Beit Midrash in Jerusalem. In 1948 they immigrated to the United States to live with their father Rebbe Yoel Teitelbaum of Satmar (who had reached the United States about a year and a half earlier), until her death, with no surviving children, on 14th Cheshvan 1953.

Her husband, Rebbe Chananiah Yom Tov Lipa Mayer-Teitelbaum (1906-1966; son of Rebbe Chanoch Henich Mayer of Sassov-Keretsky and Rebbetzin Esther daughter of the Kedushat Yom Tov of Sighet). Rebbe Chananiah Yom Tov Lipa married in Irshava in 1924, after which time he lived near his father-in-law and uncle and was his close assistant in directing the yeshivas in Irshava, Carei and Satmar. He served simultaneously as Rabbi of Szemihaly (Bűdszentmihály) and head of the Satmar Beit Din.