Rabbi Avraham Yehuda Hacohen Schwartz (Kol Aryeh) (1824-1875)

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Rabbi Abraham Judah ha-Kohen Schwartz (מו"ה אברהם יהודא הכהן בן מו"ה פנחס זעליג), also known by his responsa the Kol Aryeh (קול אריה), was one of the leading Hungarian rabbis of the nineteenth century. The Kol Aryeh was a student of Moses Sofer (the Chasam Sofer) and of Benjamin Wolf Low. From 1861 to 1881 he served as the Rabbi of Bergszasz in northeastern Hungary and for a number of years in his native town of Mad. He was an active participant in the rabbinical gathering in Nagymihaly in 1866 and at the congress held in Budapest in 1869. Although he studied in the Pressburg Yeshiva, whose leaders were opposed to Hasidism, after a visit which he made to Chaim Halberstam, the head of the Sanz hasidic dynasty, he became deeply attached to him and to Hasidism. Although Schwartz wrote only one work, responsa Kol Aryeh, its influence on the Rabbis of Hungary was very great. One of his grandchildren, Dov Beer Spitzer, wrote his biography, Toldos Kol Aryeh (1940).