אברהם יהודה הכהן שווארץ

Rav Avraham Yehuda HaKohen Schwartz (1 Av 5584/1824–24 Tishrei 5644/1883), known by his responsa as the Kol Aryeh, was among the leading rabbanim of Hungary in his century. Born in Mad, he entered the Pressburg yeshiva at fourteen as a talmid of the Chatam Sofer, and after his great rebbe’s passing a year and a half later, learned under Rav Binyamin Wolf Loew in Verbo.

From 5621/1861 he served as rav of Beregszasz, where his yeshiva numbered some fifty talmidim, and from 5641 as rav of his native Mad until his passing. His path joined the two crowns of Hungarian Jewry: raised in Pressburg, whose leadership kept its distance from chassidut, he became a devoted chassid after coming before Rav Chaim Halberstam of Sanz, the Divrei Chaim — and remained all his life a posek of the Chatam Sofer’s school who traveled to the tzaddik of Sanz. He took part in the great rabbinical gatherings of Hungarian Jewry at Michalovce in 1866 and at the Budapest congress of 1869, where the future of Torah Jewry in Hungary was fought out.

His sefer the She’eilot u’Teshuvot Kol Aryeh, was printed after his passing by his grandson Rav Shlomo Zalman Ehrenreich, whose influence on the poskim of Hungary was profound. His son Rav Naftali succeeded him in Mad (Mád), and his descendants — among them the rabbanim of the Ehrenreich line — filled rabbinic seats across Hungary for generations.