THE MEMORIAL BOOK OF PÁPA JEWRY - JewishGen

YESHIVAS
Rabbis considered it their sacred duty to educate young people, preparing them in the
yeshivas for a strictly religious way of living, teaching them to be pious and well-versed also in
the devotional studies. R. Wolf Rapaport, elected in 1781, organized a large yeshiva in Pápa,
which turned out outstanding rabbis. Even Lipót Lőw, the great reform-age rabbi had a yeshiva
during his short time in Pápa. The father of Henrik Marcali, the great master of Hungarian
historiography, was one of his students, and later became the rabbi of Marcali. Mór Ballagi, at the
time Móric Bloch, also attended the Pápa yeshiva, later becoming a member of the Hungarian
Academy of Sciences.
This blessed teaching job of religious education was continued by subsequent leading
rabbis Salamon Breuer and M. A. RóthWhen the latter made a stand supporting Zionism, the
Ortodox rabbis of the periodfrightened his students away from him, so during his lifetime the
yeshiva of Pápa stopped functioning. There was a long interval when the rabbinical seat remained
unoccupied and for decades there was no yeshiva in Pápa. Yeshiva life in Pápa was restarted only
after the First World War. The yeshiva was reorganized by Ezriel Gestettner, the son-in law of
Vilmos Steiner, a respectable community chairman at the time. He was helped by Reb. Avraham
Dirnfeld. Both led the yeshiva with great zeal. When the former Tolcsva rabbi Samuel Gottlieb
z"l became the chief rabbi of Pápa in 1927, organizing a yeshiva was one of the first things he
did. Unfortunately, this Ashkenazi yeshiva ceased to exist after a period of barely two years,
when Rabbi Gottlieb died.
When Yechezkel Grünwald z"l, the former Bánfihunyad rabbi moved to Pápa in 1929, he
immediately organized a chassidic yeshiva. In a short time, his yeshiva became so famous that
the number of students grew to about 300. Strictly chassidic behaviour was required by the
superiors, in addition to serious and profound learning. Many of the students continued their
studies in Belz, and when they returned to their hometown, they wore chassidic attire. The long
coats and beaver hats of the Pápa youngsters attracted great attention in the strictly Ashkenazi
community. It is worth recording that when yeshiva students were drafted for forced labour
service, Mihály Singer, a clothes dealer in Fő Utca (Main Street) provided for the needs of the
destitute free of charge, despite the fact that he himself did not belong to the rabbi’s followers.
The Holocaust destroyed the Pápa yeshiva as well. Only a handful of the pious students survived,
most of who live in Brooklyn with their offspring, devotedly attending the so-called ‘Papa
yeshiva’.
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