STRETYN, JUDAH ẒEVI HIRSCH (Brandwein) OF

STRETYN, JUDAH ẒEVI HIRSCH (Brandwein ) OF (d. 1854), founder of a ḥasidic dynasty in eastern Galicia. Judah Ẓevi Hirsch was a scion of a prominent family of rabbis and ẓaddikim and the outstanding disciple of Uri (Ha-Saraf) b. Phinehas of *Strelisk. After the death of his teacher, he left his work as a shoḥet and succeeded Uri as leader of the Strelisk Ḥasidim. Like his teacher, he emphasized the importance of ecstatic prayer. Judah Ẓevi Hirsch did not deliver many ḥasidic teachings, and only a few were collected later in Degel Maḥaneh Yehudah.

His name is included in a list of 12 leading ẓaddikim in Galicia appended to a detailed memorandum on the ḥasidic movement which the chief of police in Lemberg sent to the provincial authorities. As an example of the negative elements in the ḥasidic "cult of the ẓaddik" the chief of police forwarded a remedy formula (segullah) which had been found during a search in the house of a Ḥasid, which Judah Ẓevi had written for a follower whose wife was having difficulties in childbirth. His son abraham of stretyn (d. 1865) succeeded him. His other sons, eliezer of ozopol and samuel zanvil (d. 1887), also continued as ẓaddikim, and their descendants established a small ḥasidic community in Ereẓ Israel. One of them was Yehudah Ẓevi *Brandwein, kabbalistic author and the "rabbi of the Histadrut." Their teachings and stories about them are found in Eliezer Brandwein's Degel Maḥaneh Yehudah (1912) and Israel Berger's Eser Ẓaḥẓaḥot (1909).

bibliography:

R. Mahler, Ha-Ḥasidut ve-ha-Haskalah (1961), index.