אברהם יהודה הכהן שוורץ

Abraham Judah Ha-Kohen Schwartz (1824-1883), rabbi, born in Mad, Hungary (then part of the Austrian Empire). At the age of fourteen, he started to study under Moses Sofer and Benjamin Wolf Levi at Pozsony, Hungary (then part of the Austrian Empire, now Bratislava, Slovakia), from where he moved to the yeshiva at Verbo. From 1861 to 1881 he served as rabbi at Beregszasz (Berehovo, now in Ukraine), and from 1861 until his death, in 1883, he was rabbi at his home town of Mad.

He was an active participant in the rabbinical gathering in Nagymihaly (Michalovce) in 1866 and at the congress held in Budapest in 1868-69. Although his personality was molded by the atmosphere of Pozsony, which was opposed to Hasidism, after a visit which he made to the head of the Hasidic dynasty of Zanz (Novy Sacz), Chaim Halberstam, he became deeply attached to him and to Hasidism. He spent the festival of Shavuot in Zanz for 26 successive years. He also had connections with Isaac Meir Alter, the head of the Hasidic dynasty of Gur (Gora Kalwaria).

Although he left only one work, responsa Kol Aryeh (1904), its influence on the rabbis of Hungary was very great. One of his grandchildren, Dov Beer Spitzer, wrote his biography – Toledot Kol Aryeh (1940). Schwartz had five sons and six daughters. Many of his descendants serves as rabbis of various Jewish communities in Hungary.