2016-07-27
NEW YORK, Aug. 2 (AP)--Grand Rabbi Solomon Halberstam, the 92-year-old head of an Orthodox Hasidic sect that has tens of thousands of followers, died Wednesday.

Thousands of Jews from the Bobov sect began gathering after word spread that Halberstam had been taken to Maimonides hospital late Tuesday, suffering from internal bleeding. Halberstam died at 2:15 a.m. Wednesday, hospital officials said.

Born in Poland in 1907, a descendant of one of the first Hasidic leaders in Europe, Halberstam survived the Holocaust and moved to New York in the 1960s. He lived briefly in Crown Heights before moving the sect to the Borough Park section of Brooklyn.

There are tens of thousands of Bobovs in New York and thousands more around the world.

In 1998, the Bobov and Satmar sects had a marital merger of sorts when Halberstam's grandson married the granddaughter of Moses Teitelbaum, the Satmar grand rebbe, or rabbi.

The Satmar sect originated in Hungary, while the Bobov or Bobovers, as they are sometimes called, came from Poland. Both groups were nearly exterminated during World War II.

Halberstam is survived by two sons and four daughters.

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