Shomer Emunim
Jerusalem · 1942
אר
Reb Arele
Reb Arele
1894 CE–1947 CE · Hasidic · Sátoraljaújhely (Ihel)
R. Aharon Roth (1894-1947), known universally as Reb Arele, was a Hungarian-born mystic and the founder of the Toldot Aharon (Shomrei Emunim) movement — the most ascetic, anti-Zionist, and emotionally intense of the postwar Jerusalem Hasidic communities. Unusually for a Hasidic founder, he was not from a rebbe-dynasty; his authority rested entirely on personal charisma, his Shomer Emunim treatise on faith and trust, and his demanding model of avodah she'be'lev — service of the heart through intense, weeping prayer. He settled in Jerusalem permanently in 1939 just before the Holocaust destroyed his Beregszasz community. His Shomer Emunim, Shulchan HaTahor, and Taharas HaKodesh remain core texts of Mea Shearim ultra-Orthodoxy. His son-in-law R. Avraham Yitzchak Kohn succeeded him as Toldot Aharon Rebbe; the movement remains based at the great beit midrash on Shivtei Yisrael Street in Mea Shearim.
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Stop 1 of 21894–1939Rebbe, Mystic
Sátoraljaújhely (Ihel)אוהעלNortheast Hungary — Ihel Hasidic center
What they did here
Born in Ung (Uzhhorod), Hungary. Led a small but intense following in Satoraljaujhely and Beregszász before WWII.
About Sátoraljaújhely (Ihel)
Sátoraljaújhely (Yiddish Ihel), in northeast Hungary, was the seat of R. Moshe Teitelbaum (Yismach Moshe, 1759-1841) and his descendants — including the early Satmar Teitelbaum dynasty before its move to Satmar (Satu Mare). R. Aharon Roth (Reb Arele) led his early Hasidic following here.
In the same place & time
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Sages whose lives overlapped with Reb Arele’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Minhat Yehuda, Imrei Emes, Isser Zalman Meltzer, Yaakov Chaim Sofer (Kaf HaChaim), Yechiel Michel Tukachinsky, Yechiel Michel Tukatchinsky, Yisrael Zev Mintzberg, Tzvi Pesach Frank, Yitzchak Isaac Sher, Martin Buber, Jacob Nachum Epstein, Mishpetei Uziel, Aharon Rokeach, Dov Berish Weidenfeld, Zalman Sorotzkin, Yaakov Moshe Charlap, Yechezkel Levenstein, Aryeh Levin
The world in their lifetime
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Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Reb Arele’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.