Chaim Elazar Spira

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Chaim Elazar Spira (December 17, 1868 – May 13, 1937) was a leading Hasidic rebbe of the Munkacs dynasty. He was born in Strzyżów, in an area that is now part of Poland, into a family of rabbis. In 1903 he became Chief Justice of the Rabbinical Court in Munkács, and after his father’s death in 1913 he succeeded him as Chief Rabbi of Munkács and nearby communities.

Spira wrote more than twenty books on Jewish law, Torah, Hasidism, and philosophy, with his most famous work being the six-volume Minchas Elazar. He helped run the community, started schools called Machzike Torah, and founded a yeshiva in Munkacs named Darchei Tshuva.

In 1930 he visited Mandatory Palestine for 13 days to meet the elderly kabbalist Solomon Eliezer Alfandari. Alfandari died while Spira was in Jerusalem; a disciple, Moshe Goldstein, wrote about the trip.

Spira’s daughter, Chaya Fruma Rivka (Frima), married Baruch Yehoshua Yerachmiel Rabinowicz in 1933 in Munkács; their wedding drew over 20,000 guests and lasted seven days.

He died on May 13, 1937, in Mukachevo (then part of Czechoslovakia). His son-in-law Rabinowicz succeeded him as chief rabbi. The Munkacs Hasidic dynasty is now led by his grandson, Moshe Leib Rabinovich, who lives in Brooklyn. Spira also founded Batei Munkacs, an Israeli neighborhood that bears his name and attracts visitors.