Rav Shlomo Halberstam (1908-2000), son of Rav Bentzion, grandson of Rav Shlomo, founder of the Bobov dynasty. At the outbreak of World War II, he and his father escaped to Lemberg. On the fourth of Av 1942 his father was killed, and Rav Shlomo escaped to the Bochnia Ghetto. In Bochnia, the Rav lost his Rebbetzin and two children. He managed to escape with his only surviving child, Naftali, to Budapest, and then to Bucharest. Rav Shlomo is believed to have been the last remaining Chassidic rabbi to have survived the Holocaust. Born in the Galicia region of central Europe, Rav Halberstam arrived in the United States in 1946, alone and indigent after his group was largely obliterated by the Nazis. During the war, Rav Halberstam dressed up as a nun in order to rescue other Jews, hiding them in the false bottom of a coal truck. Rav Halberstam is widely credited with rebuilding the Bobover community in the United States.
