STRETYN, JUDAH ?EVI HIRSCH (Brandwein) OF

STRETYN, JUDAH ?EVI HIRSCH (Brandwein ) OF (d. 1854), founder of a ?asidic dynasty in eastern Galicia. Judah ?evi Hirsch was a scion of a prominent family of rabbis and ?addikim and the outstanding disciple of Uri (Ha-Saraf) b. Phinehas of *Strelisk. After the death of his teacher, he left his work as a sho?et and succeeded Uri as leader of the Strelisk ?asidim. Like his teacher, he emphasized the importance of ecstatic prayer. Judah ?evi Hirsch did not deliver many ?asidic teachings, and only a few were collected later in Degel Ma?aneh Yehudah.

His name is included in a list of 12 leading ?addikim in Galicia appended to a detailed memorandum on the ?asidic movement which the chief of police in Lemberg sent to the provincial authorities. As an example of the negative elements in the ?asidic "cult of the ?addik" the chief of police forwarded a remedy formula (segullah) which had been found during a search in the house of a ?asid, which Judah ?evi 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 ?addikim, and their descendants established a small ?asidic community in Ere? Israel. One of them was Yehudah ?evi *Brandwein, kabbalistic author and the "rabbi of the Histadrut." Their teachings and stories about them are found in Eliezer Brandwein's Degel Ma?aneh Yehudah (1912) and Israel Berger's Eser ?a??a?ot (1909).

bibliography:

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