The story of Rabbi Izak Lipschütz

Until now, we knew little about the rabbis of Czarny Dunajec. In the archives of Yad Vashem a few years ago we found only a photo with the caption: rabbi from Czarny Dunajec, but without a date. We suspected that it was Izak Lipschütz, whose signature (as deputy rabbi and rabbi) appears on many documents relating to Czarny Dunajec.

Rabbi Izak Rubin Lipschütz of Czarny Dunajec, photo: Yad Vashem archives

An entry in the oldest surviving marriage book from 1884 concerning a young couple from Czarny Dunajec shows Jacob Hirsch's signature as the district rabbi (from Nowy Targ), in later years it is Rabbi B. Stroch. Not all marriage certificates have survived, but in the 1924 and 1926 documents for Czarny Dunajec, Izak Lipschütz signs as deputy rabbi even then (a similar function was held by Eliasz Eichenstein in Zakopane at the time). In 1930, in addition to Rabbi Stroch, his next deputy Elijah Weiss appears, and Izak Lipchütz already signs as a full-fledged rabbi from Czarny Dunajec. All indications are that he held his position until the war, as long as there was a Jewish community in Czarny Dunajec, and then perished with his relatives in the Belzec death camp in 1942.

Thanks to a recent visit to the Jewish cemetery in Brzesko, I accidentally learned about an ohel containing the graves of three rabbis from the Lipschitz dynasty. Their ancestor came from Wisnicz, and this town was cited in documents by Rabbi Lipchütz of Czarny Dunajec as his hometown. It turned out that the Lipschitz rabbinical dynasty from Brzesko and Rabbi Izak Lipschütz belong to the same rabbinical family, whose roots go back to Wisnicz. Most of the information on this subject was gathered by Anna Brzyska of the Association "Memory and Dialogue. A Common History," which is dedicated to documenting the history of the Jewish community of Brzesko and the surrounding area.

Rabbi Izak Rubin Lipschütz's great-great-grandfather was an 18th-century Jew born in Wisnicz Chaim Aszer Lipschitz. Chaim's son was Arie Leibush Lipschitz, who was born in Wisnicz in 1767 and started a dynasty of rabbis from Brzesko, is considered a tzaddik, and Jews from abroad still make pilgrimages to his grave. As we read in the history of the Lipschitz family on the website of the "Memory and Dialogue" Association, he was a disciple of the famous tzaddik Jacob Isaac Horowitz, known as the "Seer of Lublin". Before Arie Lejbusz came to Brzesko he was a rabbi in Krzeszów, Bilgoraj, Sieniawa and Wisnicz, among other places. He was also the author of three works on religious subjects, including "Arie of the Magnificent Family." He died in 1846, and after him the office of rabbi in Brzesko was taken over by his son Meszulam Zalman Jehonatan Lipschitz. The rabbinical tradition in Brzesko was continued by Meszulam's son Tuwie (Tobiasz) Lipschitz. The graves of all three, i.e. Ari, Meshulam and Tuwie, are located in the ohel at the cemetery in Brzesko. 

But returning to the rabbi from Czarny Dunajec - his grandfather was Meszulam's brother, or Aron Zelig Lipschitz, born in 1808 in Wisnicz, where he also died in 1878. Aron married Hinda Spira (1809 - 1884), the daughter of a rabbi from Tarnogrod. They lived in Wisnicz and had three sons and five daughters. One of Aron and Hinda's sons was Hirsch Tzvi Jonas Lipschitz (1839 - 1897), who was a rabbi in Wisnicz.

An entry in the birth certificate of Hirsch, or Jonas Lipschitz, born in 1839 in Wisnicz

Hirsch's wife was Blima Ehrlich. Their son was Izak Rubin Lipschütz, who was born according to the metric in Wisnicz January 10, 1871, although on one of the wartime documents he gave his birth year as 1867. In the Wisnicz metrics we still found information about Izak's two older brothers: Moses Yosef Lipschitz, born September 23, 1861 in Wisnicz, son of Hersch and Blima, and Chaim Lipschitz, born January 2, 1865.

Entry in the birth certificate of Izak Lipschitz, born in 1871 in Wisnicz

We don't know when Izak Rubin moved to Czarny Dunajec to assume leadership of the Jewish community, and we also don't know why exactly he was chosen as Czarny Dunajec's rabbi, but there are many indications that the town has had close contacts with Wisnicz for a long time. In the first document mentioning the presence of Jews in Czarny Dunajec, we read that the lessee of the estate of Nowy Targ starost Adam Kazanowski sent three Jews from Wisnicz to Podhale in 1640: old Isaac, with his son Jacob and son-in-law Joseph. They became tenants of a brewery belonging to the village leader Mientus in Czarny Dunajec (I will describe this story separately). The same surnames that we later find in Czarny Dunajec as well, such as Korngut, Einhorn, Kluger, Klapholz, Kleinzahler, Kalfus, Kaufthal, Lamensdorf, Weiss, Blumenkranz, recur in the Wisnicz metrics. In a similar direction, perhaps at the urging of family or friends, also went Izak Rubin Lipschütz, who married Chaja Suszia (Sosi), daughter of Rabbi Jozef Hollender of Mszana Dolna. In the metrics of the Nowy Targ district, one can find information that Adolf Lipschütz, son of Izak and Sosi Hollender, was born on August 27, 1894 in Czarny Dunajec. This is their first and oldest child about whom we have confirmed information. Adolf married the daughter of a rabbi from Lubaczow, Zlata Frenkel (they had at least two children, Chaja, born 1923 and Abraham, born 1927 in Lubaczow).

We still found data in the birth certificates about more children of Izak and Chaja: Rachela Freida, born in 1897 in Czarny Dunajec (she married the son of a rabbi from Sanok, Mendel Spira), Feige, born in 1898, Hersch Jojne (also 1898, it is possible that one of these dates is entered incorrectly), Aron, who with his wife Reisel, nee Strock, of Nowy Targ, had at least one child (son Binem, born in 1926 in Czarny Dunajec), Riwka, born in 1904, Chana, born in 1907, Solomon, born in 1908, who married the daughter of a rabbi from Bedzin, Perla Sapira, Sala, born in 1911 (her application from Krakow in 1940 with a photo has survived).

Sala Lipschütz pictured in an application submitted to the Jewish community in Krakow in 1940, photo by the archives of the Jewish Historical Institute.

We don't know if the Lipschütz had any more children, but one of the daughters married the son of a rabbi from Wielopole Skrzynskie in 1939. This is described by Mejloch Kleinzahler in a letter to her cousin. We have no information that anyone from the Lipschütz family survived the Holocaust.

About the ancestors of Rabbi Izak Rubin Lipschütz we managed to find out something else. The great-grandfather Arie Leibush, mentioned at the beginning, founder of the Lipschitz rabbinical dynasty in Brzesko, married Chana Teitelbaum, daughter of the famous Moshe Teitelbaum (1759-1841), also known as Yismach Moshe, who is also associated with Brzesko and whose story we can read on the website of the "Memory and Dialogue" Association and on the Wikipedia. Moshe Teitelbaum was the great-great-grandfather of Izak Rubin Lipschütz. He was first a rabbi in Przemyśl, and later founded a Hasidic community in the then Hungarian town of Ujhely (today's Slovenske Nove Mesto in Slovakia). He wrote several significant works, including the Torah commentaries "Yismach Moshe" ("Moses rejoiced"), and his descendants and followers today form the Satmar Hasidic communities. Descendants of Yismach Moshe in Brzesko were not only rabbis of the Lipschitz family, but also the Teitelbaums, including the chairman of the rabbinical court, Menasche Teitelbaum. The story of Moshe Teitelbaum's ancestors can be traced back many generations, but that is an occasion for another story.

[Spelling: In the Wisnicz metrics and later studies, the surname Lipschitz is spelled with an "i," while the rabbi from Czarny Dunajec signed in the form Lipschütz with an "ü," so I have retained this spelling of the names].