Shmuel Dovid Ungar

Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Ungar (23 November 1885 – 9 February 1945), also known as Rabbi Samuel David Ungar, was the rabbi of the Hungarian city of Nyitra (now Nitra, Slovakia) and dean of the last surviving yeshiva in occupied Europe during World War II. He was the father-in-law of Rabbi Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl, and played a minor role in the Bratislava Working Group's efforts to save Slovak Jews from the Holocaust.

Early life Ungar was the only son born to his father, Rabbi Yosef Moshe Ungar (1855–1897), the rabbi of the town of Pöstyén (today: Piešťany). He was a descendant of the Abrabanel. Ungar's father died when he was 11 years old, and he became a frequent guest at the home of Rabbi Kalman Weber, who was appointed Rav of Pöstyén in his father's place.

After his bar mitzvah, Shmuel Dovid left home to study at the yeshiva in Prešov, headed by his uncle, Rabbi Noach Baruch Fisher. Later, he studied at the yeshiva in Unsdorf, led by Rabbi Shmuel Rosenberg. He married his first cousin, Miriam Leah Fisher, daughter of Rabbi Noach Baruch.

In Nitra, Ungar built up a yeshiva with nearly 300 students that eventually attracted students from Czechoslovakia, Romania, Austria, and Germany. He taught in the classic Hungarian style introduced by the Chasam Sofer, and although he did not set out to produce rabbis, some of his students did go on to become prominent rabbis in their hometowns. and became Ungar's right-hand man in all aspects of running the yeshiva.

Besides his position as the chief rabbi of Nitra, Ungar was appointed vice president of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, the supreme religious body of World Agudath Israel, in 1935. on the Sabbath. While terror and fear were others' constant companions, he was concerned with how to fulfill the mitzvah of hearing the shofar blasts on Rosh Hashanah. on 9 February 1945 (8 Adar 5705 according to the Hebrew calendar). and Yaakov Yitzchak, and a daughter, Chaya Nechama, survived the war. (Chaya Nechama later married Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam, the Klausenberger Rebbe, in America in 1947. ) Another son, Benzion, the Rav of Piešťany, was taken to a prison camp in Sereď, where he was murdered by Slovak military police. Ungar's rebbetzin, Miriam Leah, was also murdered, together with many other family members. Ungar's son-in-law, Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl, survived the war.

Ungar's Torah writings were saved by a Gentile woman who gave them to Ungar's son, Sholom Moshe, after the war. These were published under the title Ne'os Desheh ("Lush meadows", a line from Psalm 23; the second word in Hebrew, דשא, contains his initials, שמואל דוד אונגר).

After the war, Rabbi Sholom Moshe Ungar was named Rav of Nitra by the survivors of that city, and re-opened the Nitra Yeshiva. In 1946, he and his brother-in-law, Rabbi Weissmandl, moved the Nitra Yeshiva to Somerville, New Jersey. In 1948, the yeshiva was moved again to its present site in Mount Kisco, New York. See Yeshiva of Nitra.

Rabbi Sholom Moshe Ungar's son, Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Ungar (named after his grandfather), is the current Nitra Rav and Rosh Yeshiva. Today, the Nitra community has branches in Boro Park, Williamsburg, Monsey, and Jerusalem, Israel.