Belz is a Hasidic dynasty founded in the town of Belz in Western Ukraine, near the Polish border, historically the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. The group was founded in the early 19th century by Rabbi Shalom Rokeach, also known as the Sar Shalom, and led by his son, Rabbi Yehoshua Rokeach, and grandson, Rabbi Yissachar Dov, and great-grandson, Rabbi Aharon, before the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939. While Aharon managed to escape Europe, together with his brother Rabbi Mordechai Rokeach, most of the Belz Hasidim were murdered in the Holocaust. Aharon re-established the Hasidic community in Israel following World War II. As of the 2020s, Belz has sizable communities in Israel, Western Europe, and the Anglosphere.
The synagogue in Belz, dedicated in 1843, destroyed by the Nazis in 1939
Section of Belz Rebbes in Belz
The fifth, and present, Belzer Rebbe, Grand Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach
Belzer tish, Purim 2006
Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism, is a religious movement within Judaism that arose as a spiritual revival movement in Poland and contemporary Western Ukraine, during the 18th century, and spread rapidly throughout Eastern Europe. Today, most of those affiliated with the movement, known as hassidim, reside in Israel and in the United States.
A tish of the Boyan Hasidic dynasty in Jerusalem, holiday of Sukkot, 2009
Rebuilt synagogue of the Baal Shem Tov.
Rebbe Yisroel Hopsztajn, a great promulgator of Hasidism in Poland, blessing acolytes c. 1800. Hasidism gave the elite Tzadik a social mystical role.
The Kaliver Rebbe, Holocaust survivor, inspiring his court on the festival of Sukkot