Dovid Borenstein

Dovid Bornsztain (also rendered Borenstein) was born in 1876 in Nasielsk, in Russian Poland, into the rabbinic family that led the Sochatchov (Sochaczew) Hasidic community. He was a son of Shmuel Bornsztain and a grandson of Avrohom Bornsztain, who had founded and shaped the dynasty's tradition of close Talmudic reasoning. After his early studies he took up communal posts, serving as rabbi of Wyszogród from around 1906 and, following a wartime relocation to Łódź, of Tomaszów Mazowiecki between 1918 and 1926. On his father's death in 1926 he became the third Sochatchover Rebbe and established his court in Pabianice, near Łódź, where he also organized a network of yeshivot. During the German occupation he made his way to the Warsaw Ghetto and died there in 1942. Notes he had written on the Passover Haggadah were later published as Chasdei Dovid.